Spring Cleaning of Specimens

Hello!

I'm currently on track to graduate from Cornell this semester, which is exciting and daunting in equal measures~ As part of this, I'm going to be taking at least a year break between undergraduate and any graduate degrees, so I won't have an extensive storage space for specimens.

I have ~200 ethanol-filled vials stuffed with specimens, and this would be a really good time for me to send out specimens of interest to other researchers! I still have access to the shipping facilities of my lab, so it would be covered under their account, and I also have the ability to send specimens in EtOH, which I would need special permission to do as an individual.

If you happen to take a look through my observations, nearly all of the photos taken through a microscope are currently preserved in my EtOH collection. My main focus is on Acalyptratae (Diptera), so I'm planning on retaining the majority of those specimens. However, anything else I would gladly send over for your own morphological/DNA/anything else studies.

The majority of my specimens are from Ithaca, New York, , but I have a few from private properties in Arizona and California too. In addition, if I had multiples of a given specimen, I only took one photo to represent them all, so I may have duplicates (but I honestly didn't take notes... foresight is 20:20).

Just send me a message if you're interested!

-Spencer

[I'm going to tag some of my most common identifiers here just in case they're interested: @nomolosx @brandonwoo @johnascher @bdagley @trichopria @jeongyoo @sdjbrown @trinaroberts @mjplagens @edanko @arman_ @kschnei @kgrebennikov @aispinsects @borisb @jeremyhussell @zdanko @chrisangell @omnipresent_millipede @jane41 @hopperdude215 @grigorenko @phycus @johnklymko]

Posted on 24 February, 2022 19:33 by spencerpote spencerpote

Observations

Photos / Sounds

What

Scriptured Leaf Beetles (Genus Pachybrachis)

Observer

spencerpote

Date

July 12, 2021 02:00 PM EDT

Photos / Sounds

What

Braconid Wasps (Family Braconidae)

Observer

spencerpote

Date

July 26, 2021 08:45 AM EDT

Photos / Sounds

Observer

spencerpote

Date

July 28, 2021 01:27 PM EDT

Description

measurements in 1/16 inches

Comments

@bclaridge may be interested in Ichneumonids specimens

Posted by zdanko about 2 years ago

As for me I don't know if I have time for specimens yet but am glad to hear about this and let you know if I got more time. Just to know, do you have many bees and wasps overall?

Posted by bdagley about 2 years ago

^

Posted by zdanko about 2 years ago

It looks like in terms of observations, I'd estimate about 180 in Hymenoptera that are now in ethanol.

Posted by spencerpote about 2 years ago

Interesting, well I hope they go to good use (and are uploaded) and I'd let you know later on if I could take any.

Posted by bdagley about 2 years ago

I don't need anything in particular at the moment, but thanks for the heads up!

Posted by johnklymko about 2 years ago

Thanks for the name check. I'm interested to acquire Diapriidae, but I don;t think there are any on your obs

Posted by trichopria about 2 years ago

Thanks for the mention @zdanko! I would be interested in any ichs you might not have need of.

Posted by bclaridge about 2 years ago

Thank you kindly. I am interested in any Perilampids you encounter.

Posted by jeongyoo about 2 years ago

I think I would be happy to receive specimens you didn't want as a donation for CAS. I could sort them as best I could. It may take a while. :) Let's see if @cgrinter thinks I'm nuts... :) I'm assuming they all have appropriate locality and date labels, etc.

Posted by kschnei about 2 years ago

Hi Spencer. Yes, I'd be interested in any weevil specimens you may be wanting to pass on.

Posted by sdjbrown about 2 years ago

Great! So I have the following checklist:
@trichopria I checked my files, and unfortunately I only had one Diapriidae, which is already donated to the teaching collection.

@bclaridge I have quite a lot of Ichneumonoidea wasps, but I have a lot of trouble separating Braconidae from Ichneumonidae. I'm going to go through my observations and try and identify them one way or the other, but if you have a chance, could you look over my ID's and make sure I'm getting you only true Ichneumonidae? I also have a bunch at Apocrita level... Hymenoptera are wonderful but quite difficult to ID for me!

@Jeongyoo I have just one Perilampidae wasp that I'll separate out for you!

@sdjbrown I'll gather all the Curculionoids I have~ They're one of my favorite beetle groups, so I tried collecting lots of them.

@kschnei This is a super interesting idea! I've donated some interesting specimens to the CUIC already, but they're already packed with many of these more common Coleoptera and Hemiptera, as I made no real special effort to collect rare ones. As such, they might actually have more value over at the CAS as comparison. If Chris Ginter is ok with it, I'll send over the Hemiptera and non-Big-5 orders to you.

--

And then I'll retain all of the Diptera, the Auchennorhynchans (if I ever move from Diptera, they're my next choice, just absolutely adorable little bugs), the microwasps (I think they'll be quite valuable to someone someday!) and the Mordellidae (my favorite beetles, I love their funky shape). I've decided to pin the beetles and donate them to the CUIC, and then I'll ask Bryan Danforth, the curator of Hymenoptera in the CUIC, whether he's interested in my bee/wasp specimens.

Fun!

Posted by spencerpote about 2 years ago

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