About

A little bit about me…. I’ve been collecting and informally studying insects for about 10 years. Some years more than others, but always a bit of collecting in the summer and spreading and curating in the winter. I also purchased some foreign stuff – just the cool showy bugs that look good in a collection. When I started I would collect virtually everything that flew – if it had wings and 6 legs, I was going to net it. But then I discovered that I had to then ID, spread or mount in some fashion, tag and curate into my collection. This took a lot of time. And then, on top of that, my drawers started to fill up. So I began to be a bit more selective. I decided that because I like lighting at night, that I would collect domestic moths along with butterflies whenever I could. (A full time job can really throw a monkey wrench into daytime collecting.) I also limited my foreign purchases to Lucanids only. This turned out to be a good solution to my problems. I could collect at will and still have enough time and space to store what I collected.

Then, 2 years ago, my wife and I made the decision to change our lives in a rather drastic way. We decided to sell our house and move aboard our sailboat. No more bug room, no more space for a cabinet, no desk, no shelves for spreading boards – no room. You can see a bit about our life aboard the boat at weliveonaboat.com. I tried to maintain my collection using a storage unit and our trailer camper. I kept my cabinet in the storage unit and used the camper as my bug room. That sort of worked except when we wanted to go camping – plus I found it harder and harder to maintain the collection as I had to get in the car a drive for 15 mins to get to my cabinet and then another 15 mins by car to get to my bug room. This was not a long term solution. And here we are…

I have decided to make my collection a mix of remote and virtual. Remote in the sense that the bugs that I’ve collected will be found in collections all over North America and virtual as in this journal. There are several collectors that have already expressed interest in receiving material from me and I anticipate hearing from more. (Please contact me if you are a collector looking for specimens from me.)

What I do is collect, ID (to the best of my knowledge) and store everything I collect. I make an entry here on the journal every time I do something significant regarding collecting. Then, occasionally during the season, I send out the stuff that I’ve collected to the various collectors that the specimens have been designated for. Hopefully, they will then, spread and curate those insects into their collections where they will be maintained and properly cared for. I hope that all these collections will eventually end up in either other collections or institutions for future generations to see and study.

I’ve still keep my cabinet, and I still intend to put the occasional bug into it – just the special stuff. I also still plan to purchase Lucanids now and then, and just keep slowly enlarging that part of my collection.

And that’s it – my virtual remote insect collection.