Material

If you collect insects for a year in tropical forest, you’ll get quite an impressive material. I have a massive number of insects, lots of undescribed species, etc lying about at the museum just waiting to be studied.

Get in touch if you want to study them! I am more than willing to share, there is no way I can do it on my own during my lifetime. Read below for details and terms of use.

Uganda 2014–2015

In a nutshell

  • 876 Malaise samples
    • ≈ 100 litres of insects and some other taxa
    • ≈ 100 000 parasitoid wasps (Ichneumonidae + Braconidae)
  • 3437 hand-netted insects

I collected these in Kibale National Park, Uganda, during a year of Malaise trapping in 2014–2015. Flying insects were collected by 34 traps in different forest types. I emptied the traps about every two weeks (elephants permitting). Data on the weather, vegetation around the traps, maps etc here. More info in our first paper.

For examples of what can be done with the material, check the taxonomy and ecology of Rhyssinae.

Material in more detail

In the years after collecting, the material has been processed and has got.. complicated. Currently (2021) it is preserved in approximately the following form.

  • 876 Malaise samples
    • preserved in about 70% ethanol in glass jars
    • each sample contains about 2 dl insects + other invertebrates and some vertebrates
    • parasitoid wasps (Ichneumonidae + Braconidae) and spiders have been separated from these
  • 876 wasp samples
    • preserved in about 70% ethanol in glass jars
    • each sample contains about 150 wasps separated from the Malaise samples
    • subfamily Rhyssinae has been separated from these, some other subfamilies partly separated
  • 876 spider samples
    • preserved in about 70% ethanol in tubes
    • each sample contains spiders separated from the Malaise samples
  • 448 Rhyssinae wasps
    • pinned and kept in boxes
    • separated from the wasp samples, sorted into six species and published (1,2).
  • 1245 Ophioninae wasps
    • preserved in about 70% ethanol in tubes, except one leg per wasp frozen in 96% ethanol
    • separated directly from the Malaise samples in Uganda (some Ophioninae are still in the wasp samples)
  • 3437 hand-netted insects
    • preserved frozen in 96% ethanol, in tubes
    • mainly ichneumonid and braconid wasps
    • data on time and place of collecting exists, but not yet uploaded anywhere

Studying the material

Get in touch if any of the above sound interesting! I am more than willing to share the material or to give more information.

The main limit is the time needed for processing. My estimate is that it takes at least 30 weeks to open up the Malaise samples and pick a specific taxon from them. So if your taxa of interest is still mixed with the other insects in the Malaise samples, you may have to spend some time getting it. Unfortunately, I probably won’t have the time to do it myself.

There are some terms of use. These are flexible, contact me and we can negotiate 🙂

  • Publications on this material should be open access.
  • I would appreciate being a co-author in any publications.
  • The material should preferably stay at the museum (short-term loans may be manageable).
  • The data of any publications should preferably be uploaded to Zenodo.