Welcome to my (Jonathan’s) bug collection!
I do not collect like real entomologists (I do not kill bugs to collect them.) All these specimens I either: (1) found dead in the wild, (2) caught and kept as pets, then prepared them when they died naturally, or (3) I raised them from eggs, took care of them and observed, and then prepared when they died naturally.
Click on the links below and you can see my blogs about every insect (or arachnid)!
The big butterfly (Tiger swallowtail) is my best specimen. It is museum quality, although it happened naturally!
Above the big butterfly, are the mantises and the skin from their molts. There are three Chinese mantises (I grew them from eggs) and two Carolina mantises I caught (see one of them fighting, a preparation video, and the eggs she laid!). The upper 2 mantises are females and the lower 3 are all males.
The Horned passalus beetle (the shiny black beetle in the middle), is the best beetle in my collection. Its wings are spread nicely, and its elytra are shiny. To find it, look at the middle of my collection.
Close to the bottom, there is a colorful Ornate Bella moth.
At the left side of the collection box, there is a column of locusts and grasshoppers. I caught them all at the National farm. I prepared them with spread wings, after they lived a long and happy life.
Near the darner dragonfly, there is the introduced Japanese burrowing cricket. above it, there is a Brown-belted bumblebee.
At the bottom and near the Bella moth, I have Painted lady butterflies. We grew them from 1st instar caterpillars. One of them was called Crumble, because it emerged like that from its cocoon. But it did not stop it from being a very happy and bubbly butterfly. It was very friendly. (Blog coming soon…)
My favorites in this box are the small orange butterfly (Fritillary butterfly), hook faced conehead katydid (Pyrgocorypha uncinata), black horsefly, and what looks like a tarantula hawk but is probably a Mydas fly that can sting.
Next to the Mydas fly, I have armor from Eastern Hercules beetle, which I raised from Instar 3 larvae but it pupated badly and died. As you can see from the horn, it was a minor male. It took a looong time to develop, more than 18 months, and looked beautiful as a pupa (blogpost coming soon)!
Above them, there are 3 (black winged, male) and 3 (translucent-winged, female) Ebony jewelwings (blog coming soon).
On the left of the Ebony Jewelwings, there are Pharaoh cicadas, male and female. These are specimens from the rare 17 year Brood X that emerged in 2021 in Virginia and Maryland. (Blog coming soon!) The green cicada to the right from Brood X and below the Darner dragonfly is an annual green cicada.
The green beetle near the large Darner dragonfly is a green shield bug. It is a character in my The Bug Story fiction series. Check out the info page in Book 3.
I also have a Snowy Tree cricket, my favorite cricket. It is in between the Eastern Hercules beetle armor piece and the Pyrgocorypha uncinata.
When its summer, one of my goals is to prepare some eastern tailed blue butterflies that commonly live in our backyard in the warm summer. I’ll post some blogs about them when it is the right weather for them to come out.
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