Giant Swallowtail Butterfly

This is a picture of a Giant Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio cresphontes). The wing span measures 3 5/8 inches (9.2 cm). I caught it near Nauvoo, Illinois, by the shore of the Mississippi River, in July of 1970. I was 16 years old then. You will notice that this specimen is imperfect and you may wonder why I keep it in my collection when I could replace it with a more perfect one. I keep it because I caught it while I was on a vacation with my family. We were going to have a picnic and I saw this butterfly and ran after it with my butterfly net in hand. I was near a road and I was honked at by a driver who thought I would run out into the road to catch it. I was careful to stay out of the road and I safely caught it. This butterfly brings back good memories of a family trip. It was great. I will keep this butterfly in my collection even though it is imperfect, because it has sentimental value to me and my family.

First Post

Hello. My name is Mark Wilcox and I collect insects. I have specimens that I have caught myself, and specimens that I have traded for, and specimens that I have inherited, and specimens that I have bought. I think I have about three thousand specimens, mostly butterflies, but lots of other insects too. I am going to share my collection with you through my blog. There is information related to each specimen that may be of value to someone out there, and there are stories behind some of them as well. I hope you enjoy what I have to share.

Here is a picture of some insects that I have been working on lately. This picture shows a styrofoam board with mounted insects that I will be labeling. Each specimen needs to have a tiny tag of paper, or several tags that display the name of the insect, when and where it was caught and by whom. These tags, which will be mounted on the pin under the insect, may also contain information about what the insect was eating or any other important piece of information; like whether it was caught in the wild or reared on an insect farm. These pictured specimens came from Utah (where I live), Wyoming, Indonesia, Peru and Africa. I will be posting close up pictures of these specimens and others in days to come.