Pérez-Benavides A Lucía, Ospina-Peñuela Esau, Gamboa Jean, Duran-Bautista Ervin H
Laboratorio de Entomología Universidad de la Amazonía, LEUA, Grupo de Investigación en Entomología Universidad de la Amazonia (GIEUA), Universidad de la Amazonia, Facultad de Ingeniería, Florencia, Caquetá, Colombia.
Museo Entomológico UNAB, Sistemática de Insectos Agronomía, SIA, Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
J Insect Sci. 2023 Mar 1;23(2). doi: 10.1093/jisesa/iead010.
Ethanol (EtOH) 70% is commonly used in collections to preserve and store many unprepared soft-bodied Chalcidoidea. Specimens air-dried directly from alcohol, however, often suffer from collapse of some body parts, making subsequent observation of their morphology difficult or even impossible. We propose an inexpensive method for processing and dry-mounting specimens of Chalcidoidea, using a chemical process including amyl acetate. Four treatments using amyl acetate at different concentrations and exposure times were evaluated for specimens of Eulophidae, Mymaridae, Encyrtidae, Aphelinidae, Pteromalidae, and Trichogrammatidae. Treatment with amyl acetate resulted in specimens of consistently higher quality. Based on our results, treatment of specimens for 1 h with 50:50 amyl acetate and ethanol mixture, followed by treatment for 1 h with 100% amyl acetate, yielded specimens adequate for morphological observations for most of the families. Further experiments are required, however, to optimize this approach for Trichogrammatidae and Eulophidae. This method is a relatively simple, inexpensive, and safe alternative to other methods commonly used for restoring Chalcidoidea preserved in alcohol.
70%乙醇（EtOH）常用于采集保存许多未处理的软躯体小蜂总科昆虫。然而，直接从酒精中晾干的标本，其身体某些部位常常会塌陷，致使后续对其形态的观察变得困难甚至无法进行。我们提出一种使用包括乙酸戊酯在内的化学方法处理和干制小蜂总科标本的廉价方法。针对姬小蜂科、缨小蜂科、跳小蜂科、蚜小蜂科、金小蜂科和赤眼蜂科的标本，评估了使用不同浓度和暴露时间的乙酸戊酯的四种处理方法。用乙酸戊酯处理得到的标本质量始终更高。根据我们的结果，用50:50的乙酸戊酯和乙醇混合物处理标本1小时，然后用100%乙酸戊酯处理1小时，对大多数科来说能得到适合形态观察的标本。然而，对于赤眼蜂科和姬小蜂科，还需要进一步实验来优化这种方法。该方法是一种相对简单、廉价且安全的替代方法，可用于恢复保存在酒精中的小蜂总科昆虫。
