Post-Bug-Sorting

I have finished sorting and Identifying (to the best of my ability) my invertebrates. Invertebrates = Living things without a vertebrae (a spine/backbone). It was an arduous task, but I braved through it. These pictures were taken after first sorting them from debris, and then sorting them by morphospecies (morphospecies = things that lookalike) into separate vials for separate treatments. Ah, whatever,skip the trash. Basically I played with many dead bugs and here are some pictures.

"After dipping the bug in liquid nitrogen..." Nah, I didn't do that, but Cheryl used it a lot. And I helped her refill it everyday =p

See, the microscope we got to borrow was a particularly HIGH model, which means we can't sit down and look down the scope. So, William and I improvised (we're both short, but yeah, I'm the shortest) and here ya go, bricks.

Since the books for Identifying bugs was not around, I had to rely on sketches and descriptions first.

I've never been known to be good in art.

Scribbles

more..

My favourite shot. The very pair of tweezers I used throughout the entire ordeal, coupled with the holy sorting tray that we use to sort the bugs under the microscope.

70% Ethanol (alcohol), which I affectionately named "Bug-thanol" since it's used for bug-preservation.

An empty box.. which used to be filled with my sample vials. Empty because I finished my work.

Yes, labeling is immensely important.

The Holy Sorting Tray

My View

My Mess

My samples. Yes, there were that many. There are 2 full layers of vials + that incompletely filled third layer. Imagine, I went through each of these thrice.

Blood, sweat and tears?
Bugs, Sad and Tears.