An effective method for the close up photography of insect genitalia during dissection: a case study on the Lepidoptera

By

Wanke, Dominic
Rajaei, Hossein

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2018-11-6

Original Publication

Nota lepidopterologica

Volume

41

Series / Issue

Issue: 2

Pages

219--223

Subjects

Dissection , genitalia photography , Geometridae , Larentiinae , Triphosa , tunnel shape holder

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Bonn,

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.41.27831

 

Abstract

Characters of male and female genitalia in insects in general, especially in Lepidoptera, are essential for species identification as they display extensive morphological variation. In embedded genitalia, due to the positioning of the genitalia and the pressure of the cover glass, the appearance of some diagnostic characters might be confusing. This potentially leads to taxonomic misinterpretation. Additionally, the photography of genitalia structures in ethanol is difficult, due to drift or hardening of genitalia. A method is presented here to fix the position of the genitalia in ethanol, which allows comparative close up photography. The advantage of the method is demonstrated by illustrating the sacculus projection of threeTriphosaspecies.