Itinerantdaughter's Blog

I have been doing art projects with butterflies.  Here is a description of one thing you must do to “relax” the dead butterfly so it can be opened.  (That sounds sooooo dirty.)

Step #2, a la Laurie from the American Museum of Natural History’s Blog (just Google it, I’m too lazy to put in the link):

The relaxing chamber is very easy.  You can use any type of air tight container – I use Tupperware.  Place 3-4 damp paper towels in the bottom of the container.  This creates humidity, which will seep into the butterfly.  You also need to add a cap full of either Listerine or Pine-sol.  These act as mold inhibitors so your butterfly doesn’t get all yucky.  The last thing you need is something to prevent the butterfly from touching the paper towels.  I use wire mesh that I cut to the size of the container and put it on top of the towels.  I usually leave the butterfly in here for 2 days before I check on it.

Dead insect sauna.

This entry was posted on October 18, 2011 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Image Craving, Things I Love That I Go to Inappropriate Lengths to Track Down. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.