A wall is an excellent thing to keep in repair between your cornfield and your milkweed field. This keeps the corn from attacking and killing the monarch larvae, and the monarch larvae from attacking and eating the corn. Good walls make good neighbors, I always say.
Do you know how to prepare caterpillars for display. It does no good to simply stick a pin in them. You must make an incision at the anus and draw out the guts with a little hook. Of course, there is some suffering. They take a time a-dying. But we must be prepared to sacrifice even those we love for science and for art. Then insert an ordinary drinking straw in the anus toward the head, and gently, gently pray, pass warm air through the straw (an aquarium pump is best but a tank of air will do with a trickle valve). The air must go through the straw and spill out at the head then come back laminarly over the straw and out the anus. Too small a caterpillar or too big a straw, and the whole mess explodes. As soon as the carcass is dry, it must be dusted with preservative. Cyanide is best, but I find that powdered boric acid is less dangerous. Of course, the colors tend to fade, so one must be prepared to touch up the fading carcass with a very fine airbrush (don't try this if you are Parkinsonian, or have essential tremor). Of course, photograph the caterpillar while it is alive (use an electronic camera so you can compare the coloration of your picture with the living object).
This also works for spiders, and any big fleshy bugs. |
