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.
Highlights
Reproductive organs of insects are extremely diverse in form and function and they are a valuable source of information for taxonomic purposes
Drift and movement of the genitalia is a major problem during the stacking photography
Su (2016) suggested an effective method for photography of genitalia using a “Hand-sanitizer” to solve this problem. This is not possible for fixing some foldable structures (e.g. the sacculus projection in male genitalia of Triphosa species (Geometridae: Larentiinae)), because in such cases the viscosity of the “Hand-sanitizer” is not high enough to keep it in fixed position
Summary
Reproductive organs of insects are extremely diverse in form and function and they are a valuable source of information for taxonomic purposes. Su (2016) suggested an effective method for photography of genitalia using a “Hand-sanitizer” to solve this problem. This is not possible for fixing some foldable structures (e.g. the sacculus projection in male genitalia of Triphosa species (Geometridae: Larentiinae)), because in such cases the viscosity of the “Hand-sanitizer” is not high enough to keep it in fixed position. The interspecific differences of this character are mostly not comparable, when the valvae are open and placed in the embedded slides (Fig. 2, black arrows). For solving this problem, a new, inexpensive and simple method is proposed. Wanke & Rajaei: An effective method for the close up photography of insect genitalia
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