The Relaxer

by Clark Thompson

Spreading Butterflies: The relaxer. Dried, papered butterflies must be 'relaxed' (humidified) to make them supple before they can be spread. I use a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid. Any airtight container will do. I put a layer of wet paper towels on the bottom. Important: add a fungicide to prevent mold from growing on the butterflies. I use a few drops of Phenol (carbolic acid) that I purchased from a pharmacy. Use caution: Phenol will burn the skin. On top of the paper towels I lay a piece of plastic to separate the butterflies from the towels so they don't get too wet. Bubble pack works nicely. I do not take dried butterflies out of their envelopes until the second day of relaxing; to avoid the risk of breaking their antennae. After the first day or so I will remove them from the envelopes and put them back in the chamber - to speed up the hydration process. It takes about a week to fully relax dried specimens. More or less, depending on their body thickness. It is important that your lid fits tight so that you can create 100% humidity within the relaxing chamber. All that being said, it is much easier to spread fresh-caught specimens. To avoid the relaxing process for fresh-caught specimens, never let them dry out. Whenever possible I store my fresh-caught specimens in field envelopes and keep them in an airtight container until I get home from a collecting trip. Then I place the envelopes inside a Ziplock bag and put them in the freezer. When I am ready to spread them I just take them out of the freezer and thaw them out. The thawed specimens retain their original suppleness thus making the relaxing step unnecessary. I have sucessfully stored frozen specimens for up to six months in this manner. Some butterflies and most of the large Saturniidae have healthy fat stores inside the abdomen. Surgically detaching the abdomen with a razor blade, scalpel or extremely sharp knife before the fat "melts" and covers the wings with "grease" is a good idea. See Scott Smith's article about degreasing and reattaching the abdomen. I plan on doing some experimentation with surgical removing of moth abdomens, slitting them ventrally, removing fats and internal structures, stuffing them with wet, preshaped and then thoroughly-dried tissue, gluing the abdomens onto the stuffing and reattaching with clear silicone cement.

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