Mounting a rhino beetle with open wings, Chalcosoma caucasus
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- Опубликовано: 17 апр 2018
- Here a video on the mounting of a huge rhino beetle of the species Chalcosoma caucasus.
This video is not a "Do at home" video but an educational video displaying how insects are mounted for the insect museum "Axel's Nature's Best".
If you have any questions please ask!
Feel free to like and subscribe. 
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I was gifted this very beetle as a christmas present and I really love it. Thank you for the great video on it! it was really cool to see how to prepared it. It looks even better in person.
Thank you a lot for your comment! It was difficult to say goodbye to this big boy. But I knew it was going to a good home!
I find this very entertaining but How many people will actually use this as reference on how to pin a beetle for taxedermy
edit:1 year later wow I guess people actually search for that
I came here for the video specifically for this reason
Came here for studying and displaying
I'm mounting beetles for art and found this to understand how to spread the wings
I am one
This video was made with the intention to explain to people how beetles are mounted for our insect museum. Since an explaination purely existing of words won't be enough for some people. The video is mainly entertainment
My pet Eastern Hurcules beetle, Spicy, passed away recently. I used this guide as a refrence and i think i did him justice
Great video, thank you. Very well explained and to the point.
That was amazing! So beautiful man, thankyou.
Thank you! Just a reminder: Nature is the artist, I simply give the art a second life
In the thumbnail I thought it was like 4 feet! 😂
I wish it was! Let me know when you find one ;)
Still a big ass beetle
Thanks for this video, really helped me.
You're welcome!
Very informative video, just wanted too know if I were to pin a small beetle instead of the water bath what rehydration method would be recommended? Also for 'fresh', insects how do I dry them before rehydration?
Get some damp paper towels (damp but not utterly soaked to where there’s water piling in the bottom but not so damp that it’s basically nothing)- put your specimen on them in a sealed container- put it in the fridge for a day or two depending on size. I do this for beetles, butterflies, etc. works like an absolute charm- the cold keeps away the mold. No need to complicate things.
Also for fresh insects you just leave em out to dry. Just keep their corpses safe from pests and you’re good. Make sure there’s circulation. No special process really from what I’ve heard and done.
If you’ve got some spare room in your freezer tho, put them there for storage! Then you can thaw them out (leave em out for like two minutes) and work with them and it’ll be all good. I’ve got several wasps and moths in my freezer rn lol
The freezer and then thawing thing only works for fresh specimens, btw. If you put a dry specimen in your freezer then take it out it’s not gonna suddenly be rehydrated.
Do put your dry specimens in there tho if you’ve got any pests riddling them. Leave them for a few days to a week or two just to be safe. I’ve had to do it for specimen lots in the past
Everything has been said on the other comment here. Some additions: for the freezer method for killing pests I personally use a -18 degrees celcius freezer. 3 days of freezing, 7 days on room temperature and another 3 days of freezing. After that all pests as well as the eggs they possibly laid should be dead.
I would also recommend to definitely freeze fresh specimens. Even if you leave them for a very long time, they freezedry, safest way possible to dry specimens. No chance to get pests.
For rehydrating small beetles, the given method works fine. Personally I put wet sponges on the bottom side of the container that I use for hydration and put the papertowels on that. It helps to keep the humidity up.
For big fresh insects, as well as any caterpillars, beetle larvea or other very soft insects, gutting is needed if you can't freezedry. Personally I also gut stick insects and grasshoppers/crickets. I do this by making a cut in the thorax at the underside and then depending on how much I want to keep details, gut from there or cut open further through the whole thorax and abdomen.
Very good video, thank you very much for the information.
I only have one question, reviewing comments I saw the issue of freezing the specimen before ping it, I did not do this and I already have the beetle mounted, for prevention I can freeze it now that it is ready?
I really appreciate you answering this question, thank you very much and again excellent video!
Would you recommend this being ok to do with purple dung beetle? I bought a set of two framed together and it would be nice if I could spread one out like this! Thanks :)
Hey,
Thanks for watching the video.
You should be possible to do this with any beetle. The bigger the beetle, the easier.
From 1 cm bodylength onwards, it is quite doable.
Good luck! Feel free to ask anything if you need more help. I reply faster on instagram @axelsnaturesbest
Does the procedure of hidratation with the warm water also apply on smallest beetles?
It works on smaller beetles as well but there is a limit for sure. I think it would not be clever to apply this method to beetles smaller than 20 mm in length. For these smaller beetles I would use the classical method of hydration.
baha late to the party but i was wondering about the steam bath method! i want to resin a june beetle and i can tell that it definitely needs to be rehydrated. when pinning up the beetle and letting the water evaporate once more, will it dry to its pinned shape? or will it curl back? if it does curl, is there a way to gauge the time? reading back on these questions, dang they sound silly lol. but i'd appreciate any help!
Silly questions are extremely rare! Don't worry! If you pin the beetle like shown in the video it will dry out completely again! Keep in mind that the drying process can take a month to 6 weeks easily with wings open.
However, if you want to encase it in resin, I would advice to soak it in as pure as possible ethanol after drying. I use 96% bio-ethanol that they sell here for various purposes. You can soak it for a day. Then dry it again 2 days before you want to encase it. And the ethanol will help to evaporate all the small amounts of water that would still have been present in the beetle. At cold temperatures drying could take longer.
These small amounts of water don't harm a pinned specimen at all, but in resin water becomes very visible!
Great profile picture! Anyways, good luck!
@@axelsnaturesbest1028 oml thanks for the help!!!! i'll get started with this project asap (: haha and thanks, pokemon is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine
I see no guilt in that pleasure. You're welcome, don't be shy to ask more if you need help. And you can update me on the end result via the email that can be found on the "contact" page on the website
I like them.
If you are pinning a large beetle should you dissect the insides to prevent rotting? Or is it okay to leave them inside
If I would get the specimen fresh from a breeder, I would remove the soft tissues. However, most imported beetles have been chemically treated in order to kill all microorganisms (with formaldehyde for example) and can be dried without further dissection
Zou je een keer voor kunnen doen hoe je een bidsprinkhaan prepareert? Ik heb namelijk een bidsprinkhaan die over een aantal maanden dood zal gaan en die wil ik gaan prepareren maar ik heb nog nooit een insect geprepareerd.
Hallo, ik heb gisteren een video geupload over wandelende takken. Het is het zelfde principe bij bidsprinkhanen maar bidsprinkhanen zijn wel meer fragiel dus het is een voorzichtig werkje
Hi,would like to seek some advice. I have a rhino beetle which has been sitting in a jar of alcohol for many years. Is it still possible to take it out, dry it and mount it as display?
Hello there, thank you for leaving a comment. As for your question: it depends wether the beetle was put in alcohol while fresh or already dried. When it was put in fresh you could still mount it in 20 years or more. If it was put in alcohol dry then it is nicely disinfected but not mountable. In that case you need to rehydrate it before you can mount it.
So if you take the beetle out and try to move the legs, and the legs actually move, you can mount it.
If the legs don't move or you hear loud cracks while moving, it needs rehydration.
@@axelsnaturesbest1028 I see, thanks. It was put in right after it died.
@@nysnys824 Then it should go without any trouble (besides the usual of course). I wish you good luck!
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How did it go? I’m planning on mounting a weevil
Hi. I loved your video. I used to pin my Megasoma elephas, but i pinned it like 9 months ago, and still smells bad. It started in the bad way, because, it got larvaes from flys, and i freezed it like 1 week and since that it have been in a dry place for 8 months hahahaha. What should i do? I cant put it in my collection because of it smells bad. I want to put it under the sun for 1 week but idk
I cannot promise that this works. What I would personally try in this situation is to remove the needle from the body (if you did put a pin through the body) and soak the beetle in a high concentration ethanol (like 96% ethanol). The ethanol will kill micro organisms that cause the beetle to rot. But also the ethanol might absorb the chemical compounds that cause the bad smell. I would soak the beetle for a week in the ethanol. Then dry it in air for some hours. After that dry it in a closed box with silica. Open the box for a minute every couple of hours the first day. Then once per day. Until the beetle is dried out. If the beetle still smells I would try again. If the beetle still smells very bad after 2 times, I would try acetone instead of ethanol. But warning, acetone is more dangerous for your health and it might cause discoloration on the beetle (probably it would not but it can happen)
Good luck!
Hey 👋 I know this is 3 years late but I recently-ish pinned my Goliath beetle. How long should I leave him pinned for? I don’t want to take him out if his body hasn’t fully set. It’s been about 25 days.
Big beetles with open wings have to dry for a very long time. Else the wings can slightly fold back. Depending on the temperature and humidity I have them dry for 3 weeks up to 3 months
@@axelsnaturesbest1028 he turned out BEAUTIFULLY! Lol thank you very much
Hey i hope you reply to this late question, can you still hydrate any beetle even though it has been dead for a long time like maybe a year? Will it crumble or still be fine when hydrated?
If the beetle is not affected by molt or small organisms feeding of the insect, then even after a 100 years they can be rehydrated without issues.
how do you prevent it from rotting?
Hello, one thing is drying very well and as quickly as possible if the specimen is dry mold or other harmful organisms have a hard time growing. Pre-treatment in ethanol solution (70+ %) helps to sterilize the specimen before mounting. After mounting keeping the specimen in a specially designed (relatively) air tight insect box with insecticide and or fungicide helps in case the specimen is not sterile or dry enough before placing it in the insectbox. I hope this information was helpful
Would it be fine to use tracing paper on the wings instead? I surely not want to have holes on the wings because of the pins
That would be fine. For your information the needles used are only 0.25mm in diameter so hard to see the holes if the needles are placed correctly. With tracing paper you will need a more solid mounting platform than foam (balsa wood for example) and and lot of needles to press the wings hard enough to stay in position. Some beetles don't "fight back" that much. But the specimen in the video was still strongly pulling the wings back. For smaller specimens it is easier to use tracing paper for sure.
i do the legs, then the wings?
Perfection!'
Thank you a lot!
It hurt me when you stuck the pins through the wings.
I really recommend using tracing paper next time- two layers of it if you must!! I’ve pinned an atlas moth and other giant specimens using that method- the paper is seriously better and you won’t have to damage the specimen like that in the future.
I never stick needles through lepidoptera wings. I have had bad experiences with large beetles and tracing paper, with the wings still moving with 3 layers of tracing paper. The needles I use for the wings are size 000 so for normal display, no damage will be seen. I know, I don't like it either but wings folding back while drying hurts me more than 2 holes that are almost invisible with the naked eye.
So yes you are right, tracing paper is better for not damaging the beetle. For the purpose of the specimen and the easy and security the pins give, it works nicer for me. And I appriciate your opinion/advice
Axel's Nature's Best interesting- I’ve never had such a problem even with large beetles (though it does take more pins to hold things in place!)
When you cover the whole wing with tracing paper and pin tightly down around it as if you’re making a strange connect the dots set, it always works for me. Gotta make sure you’re pulling that paper tight though. I’ve had issues with things sliding before but when you get it pinned down properly it’s fine (and some people I know put a weight down on top of the tracing paper if they’re truly worried about the sliding- I don’t do that however).
There’s definitely ways around it- but different things work for everyone. Also what I mentioned above is more time consuming, so it’s just a matter of choice.
Wow never seen a rhino bettle like that.
Chalcosoma caucasus or also called Chalcosoma chiron (names in biology are sometimes heavily debated or confused or plainly ignored but both names give information about this species) is the biggest beetle of Asia in the collection. Bigger beetles can be found in South America such as the huge Megasoma acteon. The world is filled with uncountable amounts of wonders.
In order not to take risks with regard to colour etc., couldn't the beetle first be put in the freezer for some time to kill potential pests and then be hydrated?
Thanks for your question. I did not mention it in the video but it is best to always freeze your insects when you find or order them (unmounted insects that is). The way to go at it is 3 days freezing, 7 days at room temperature and another 3 days of freezing. After this the insect should be sterile (from harmful pests). If the environment is moist, keeping it in a container with ammonia also is very useful against fungus. You can do this by adding a layer of ammonia at the bottom of the container and in this layer lay a sponge and place the insect on top of the sponge (so that the insect does not thouch the ammonia, this could make it lose pigments), freezing is not effective against fungus. As such, ammonia for that.
@@axelsnaturesbest1028 Thank you for the answer!
For second when I looked at the thumbnail I thought it was some type of giant mutant beetle thing...
I wish it was! It is massive though with 11 cm body length (including horns).
60-65 what? Fahrenheit?
I am sorry for being unclear. Celcius
I can smell this video...
Strong nose you got there! The smell actually isn't that bad for real
Even though these bugs are already dead I always found this stuff a bit weird
Thanks for your comment. It is totally fine that you find this activity odd. To explain it simply, nature is wonderful and endless. However, unfortunately, not forever. Especially with the human population exploding in terms of natural growth, extinction of species is more apperant than it most likely was before. The preservation of natural wonders has multiple functions from the human perspective. From having a 3d photo, so to speak, for those who can't or won't travel the world. To research material for scientific purposes. In this case, I know the video will inspire people to learn the skill of preservation, but mostly the video is meant to inform people about how it is done since the museum gets this question a lot.
60 degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius
Apologies. Celcius
@@axelsnaturesbest1028 oh ok thank you
it take a half h in hot water or 4 hours in w water wow the water dose not w the color budy
Im a kid am i suppossed to be whatching this?? ;-;
i dont know what this is at all '-'
Hey,
It is about how a dead beetle is prepared for display in a museum.
You can watch it as long as you don't mind that the beetle is dead. There is no harmful content
Smart kids dont do gacha or put cringy uwu in their name
And u should gtfo u are not allowed to have youtube
yeah,i was 12 when i started pinning insects