[Syrphidae] Re: relaxing flies

[lasiopa at bknet.dk]

Hi all

To soften dry flies before pinning, I put them into a jar with a small strip of wet wipe. This method is fast and prevents mould.

Best wishes
Leif

----------------------------------------
Fra: "Bastiaan Wakkie" <bwakkie at syrphidae.com>
Sendt: 04/10/2022 12.57
Til: syrphidae at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Emne: [Syrphidae] Re: relaxing flies

Hi Sander,
I let the dried specie sit in a closed container (plastic/glass) with some Prunus laurocerasus (en:cherry laurel, nl:Laurier kers)
leaves. 

The leaves need to be prepared upfront though by bruising them and left in its own closed jar for a week or so till they  become brown.  When you open the jar is you will smell "nl:bitterkoekjes, en:macaroons??" then you know it ready. This can be kept good for years.
The already brown leaves produce tiny bits of cyanide. This will help relax the dried specie.
With  these leaves you also can keep for instance unpinned specimens relaxed during your travel so you can pin them later at home (check for fungi though, so not to wet). I also use it is as relatively good killing agent.

I personally use cherry laurel successfully for decades. 

A nice anecdote: One time I only got stopped at the US customs as I declared I was taking plant material into the country, don't do that! It took me a long time to persuade the customs to let me pass into the country with cyanide, hehehe  ;-)

Cheers,
Bastiaan

On 9/29/22 07:48, Sander Bot wrote:
Hi all,

Sometimes I need to relax flies to extract genitalia or to model them for photography. I use the method described in the attached paper, which works really well. Working with steam has one disadvantage though, the wings often wrinkle.
I heard there is a slower method to relax flies, which takes a day or so in which the wings do not wrinkle. Does anybody have experience with this and is happy to share this method?

Cheers,

Sander

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