How to prepare butterfly specimens

A quick guide for preparing butterfly specimens, step by step:
1. Insect specimens as butterflies, moths, dragonflies were collected from the field and keep in dried condition with folded wings and in the butterflies envelope.

2. Before mounting the specimens, we need to relax them and make them flexible wings/body, preparing a plastic box with lid.

3. Preparing a rack that fit on the plastic box, you can find the similar items or just make an rack on your way with stick and some wood pieces. In this case I used a plastic rack.

4. And set the rack into the box

5. Add the room temperature water to the box. DO NOT USE HOT WATER and keep the water lever lower than the upper surface of the rack (keep the rack surface be dried). The hot water with steam as well as wet and sticky surface rack will be reason that the wings of butterflies lose the scales.

6. Release the butterfly from its envelope and carefully put them on the rack.

  

7. You also can keep put the whole envelope with butterfly inside on the rack, however I hate to open wet envelope after that. You also can access several specimens at same time.

8. Close the lid of the plastic box in several hours, time up to how your specimens dried. An overnight duration is an usual standard, in some case it take some days.

9. Check the specimens if they are flexible by an insect forceps. Only begin mounting the butterfly as you sure that the wings can open easily and flexible.

9. Mounting the butterfly with a foam board and insect pins.

10. And compile pinning the specimen, keep them dried in room temperature or you can put them in an incubator but do not set the temperature too high. You also can keep the pined specimens in a box with silica gel or just simple keep them in a dried room.

11. Add data label and keep them in entomological collection box.

Eterusia tricolor Hope, 1840 Day Flying Moth, Zygaenidae

Eterusia tricolor is a species of moth belong to Zygaenidae family, they are day-flying moths with very colorful wings. Members of the family have been know with hydrogen cyanide in all states of their life cycle. Color of the insects is signal of information that they are toxic insects and they use hydrogen cyanide as a defense factor to protect them from predator.

Eterusia tricolor is quite common species in high mountains of Vietnam, they are weak flying insects and usually fly over the canopy of the forests. As being damaged, they release from their body some drops (mixed with air) of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) as a defensing behavior.

A individual of Eterusia tricolor

A being touched, the insect releases a droplet of hydrogen cyanide (HCN)

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) and mimicry of Papilio butterflies

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) is a moth that belong the family Epicopeiidae, they are day flying months. Most of moths are night active insects but some of them fly during the day, one of the well know and common day flying moth is insect of family Zyganidae. Members of Epicopeiidae are not variation as Zyganidae but they are very remarkable with their mimicry of Papilio butterflies. E. polydora has been found in North Vietnam and Thailand as well. They are typical Papilio mimic moth of Epicopeiidae, the wings are mainly deep black as many members of Papilio butterflies and the red, white, shining metallic blue marking on the wings are very similar to Papilio. Size of the moth also same as many large side Papilio. The hind wings of the Epicopeia also elongate when its folded partly, it will be same shape of the hind wing of swallow tail butterflies, Papilio. 

Epicopeida is easy to recognized to be a moth because the structure of their antenna, with comb shape, not slender as it of butterflies. However moth's enemies are not entomologists and they are not easy to separate a moth flying in the day with a Papilio, then to be a thing like Papilio, Epicopeida will not be attracted by predators that don't want to eat Papilio.

The day-flying moths also can be separated by the way and time of their flying, they seem slower than butterflies but normally fly higher than butterflies do.

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) (dorsal view)

Epicopeia polydora (Wetwood, 1841) (ventral view)

Some of black wings Papilio butterflies found from Vietnam:

Papilio elwesi Leech, 1889 This species have been found from North Vietnam and South China. 

Papilio protenor Fruhstorfer, 1908

Papilio paris Linaeus, 1758. 

Papilio memmon Linaeus, 1758

Papilio helenus Linaeus, 1758

Note: Three last Papilio were described by "the father of taxonomy", Carl Linaeus.