[Syrphidae] relaxing flies

[Gabriel Neve]

Hi Sander,

For relaxing flies, I use a similar set-up as the figure 1 of Plant's 
paper, but with cold water.
In order to avoid mould (especially in summer in Provence), I may add 
some thymol.

As the emalene plates float on water, a small piece of emalene floating 
loose on 1 cm of water in a jar tightly closed should do the job.
Jars commonly used for jam do the job.
Depending on the size of the specimen and temperature, relaxing takes 
from 24 to 48 hours.
Specimens of course never return to the fully relax state of fresh 
material.

Good luck,

Gabriel

---
Gabriel Neve
Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie (IMBE)
IMBE, Case 421
UMR AMU-CNRS-IRD-Avignon Université
Facultés St Jérôme
13397 Marseille cedex 20
France
gabriel.neve at imbe.fr
http://www.imbe.fr/~gneve