Hello from the Lyman

I'm actually blogging from within the insect collection surrounded by my beetles. See?I'm currently working on identifying the beetles I have sorted and pinned, as well as some beetles from someone else's project. This involves sorting them to family first, and then searching through the collection looking for the genus/species (as well as using books, keys, dissecting scope and the internet). Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's nearly impossible. I don't think I'll be able to ID all of them, but I've gotten a good chunk of them done that I'm reasonably confident about. And I've got another big unit tray of beetles I've been pinning the past few weeks that I'm waiting for my prof to make labels for.

So now I've got two databases going - one for the ones I've been identifying, keeping track of the species in each family, and number of specimens (when they get added to the collection eventually, they'll need to know how many I've got). And the database for the beetles of Mont. St. Hilaire (the big project). I won't be adding these beetles until the end of the semester and someone checks them over, so far the database includes specimens from the collection and various records found in books and other peoples' projects.
The above pic I took when I was wrestling with a beetle in the family Pyrochroidae (fire beetles) - ended up being Dendroides canadensis.

Now that I've got enough work done for the day, think I'll browse through the collection looking for more plushie inspiration...