fruit fly, small ant mounting recommendations?

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ctron
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fruit fly, small ant mounting recommendations?

Post by ctron »

During some searching, I've seen some nice fruit fly and even tiny ant stacks. Since they're so tiny, I'm wondering how to go about mounting these for taking images? Thanks.

NikonUser
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Post by NikonUser »

can you give us the reference to these images?
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

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rjlittlefield
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Re: fruit fly, small ant mounting recommendations?

Post by rjlittlefield »

ctron wrote:I'm wondering how to go about mounting these for taking images? Thanks.
As mentioned before, they're typically glued to small pins or similar pointed holders. See http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 415#184415 for a particularly well structured way to do this. I suspect that most of us just hold the mounting point by hand, often working under magnification so that we can see what we're doing.

--Rik

ctron
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Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 12:30 pm

Post by ctron »

Thanks, guys and Rik, sorry if I asked about it before and looking back, I guess I did.

ctron
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Post by ctron »

The pin and glue method seemed particularly difficult with the small ant I posted recently. It wasn't the method necessarily, but the tip of the toothpick I used was still a bit larger than the ant's body, so I had a hard time masking it out of the final stack. Even a standard pin would have shown up too much. I'm wondering what's smaller in diameter than a pin and still has strength? I used to work with some tiny diameter magnet wire, but it's so thin that it would never have the stability to keep something like an ant stationary.

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

If you search out Entomologists' Supplies in your area, they'll list a wide range of pins, the finest are remarkably thin. They go right down to "I thought they'd sent me an empty tube". It was a revelation!

If you need even smaller, then you can mount the bug on a tiny paper triangle "point" which you impale with, or glue to a pin.
Chris R

NikonUser
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Location: southern New Brunswick, Canada

Post by NikonUser »

I find mi9nuten pins work well, 0.15 mm diam.
Can use 1 or 2; see:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=18020
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

ctron
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 12:30 pm

Post by ctron »

NikonUser wrote:I find mi9nuten pins work well, 0.15 mm diam.
Can use 1 or 2; see:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=18020
Thanks for the pin suggestion and you have a nice way of mounting tiny insects. I hope it works for these tiny ants.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a cheap source for the "minutens" (do you know of a source?), but 000 insect pins are cheap. Double the diameter, but I may be able to grind down if minutens can't be found cheaply.

One other thing I'm running into is seeing my hand manipulations of the tiny ants. Short of another microscope so I can see what I'm doing, what are people using? Perhaps some sort of head loupe, etc?

Searust
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Post by Searust »

I have seen, but not used, another method... that was to glue the ant to a cover slip and shoot through that. I think the main thing was to hide the glue spots on the back side of the insect.

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