Insect collecting

Very large collections are preserved in natural history museums or universities where they are maintained and studied by specialists.

Insect collecting has left traces in European cultural history, literature and songs (e.g., Georges Brassens's La chasse aux papillons (The Hunt for Butterflies)).

Sweeping continues for some distance and then the net is flipped over, with the bag hanging over the rim, trapping the insects until they can be removed.

Soft-bodied insects, such as those in the larval stage, are generally fixed in a vial containing an ethanol and water solution.

The large majority of the time insects are pinned vertically through their mesothorax and slightly off-center to the right of the mid-line.

In scientific collections, the insect's wings, legs, and antenna are tucked underneath it to conserve space.

[9] Similarly, the smallest sizes from 000 to 1 used to be impractical for mounting until plastic and polyethylene became commonly used for pinning bases.

[9] minutens are headless micropins that are generally only made of stainless steel, used for double-mounting, where the insect is mounted on the minuten, which is pinned to a small block of soft material, which is in turn mounted on a standard, larger, insect pin.

Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri's childhood hobby of insect collecting is the inspiration behind the popular video game series.

[15] A beetle collection becomes a source of fascination for a mentally disturbed woman in Chapter XI of MacKinlay Kantor's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Andersonville (1955).