What you may and may not collect

Protected species are off limits everywhere.

Insects on the federal endangered and threatened list may not be caught, killed or kept, on any land, and states protect further species of their own. Look up the lists for your state before your first outing and learn what its protected insects look like.

National parks ban collecting.

Taking any insect from a national park requires a scientific research permit, which hobbyists do not get. National wildlife refuges need a special use permit, and most state parks and nature preserves either ban collecting or require a permit.

Other public land varies, so ask first.

Many national forests and Bureau of Land Management areas allow small-scale personal collecting of unprotected insects, but wilderness areas, research sites and local closures differ. Call the district office and get the answer for that specific place.

Private land needs the owner's permission.

Your own yard is the simplest legal place to start, and it holds more species than you will pin in a year.

Importing and exporting specimens is regulated.

Dead insects brought into or sent out of the United States, including ones bought online from overseas, must be declared to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Species listed under the CITES treaty also need permits from both countries, and it is a federal offense to move specimens that were taken illegally where they were caught.

Mailing has rules too.

Dried, dead specimens can go through domestic mail in a crush-proof box. Live insects are restricted and usually need an agriculture permit, so do not mail them.

Take few and label all.

Keep a handful of each kind, leave small or isolated colonies alone, and release anything you will not pin. A specimen without a locality label is of no use to anyone, which makes the label part of the ethics.

Check the lists and the rules

A work table with a stag beetle held in place by pins on a foam block, a spreading board holding a blue butterfly, forceps and folded paper triangles

Your first week

Net, freeze, pin, label

Tick these off as you go

What you can build in your first month

A backyard dozen

Twelve insects from your own yard, each pinned at the same height with a locality label under it.

An order row

One beetle, one fly, one bee or wasp, one true bug and one grasshopper side by side, which teaches the major groups faster than any chart.

A found-dead box

Specimens picked up from windowsills and porch lights, softened and pinned, with no collecting involved.

A first spread moth

A common porch-light moth with its wings set flat, if you add the butterfly gear.

Directions to take it

Open a direction for its first step. The butterfly one also adds its gear to the kit.

A general collection.One or two of everything you find, sorted by group. Beetles, true bugs, flies, bees and grasshoppers are sturdy, pin easily and need nothing beyond the base kit.

Start here

Spend an hour in your own yard with the net and a few vials and keep one insect from each group you can tell apart. Pin them in rows by group.

Butterfly collecting.Butterflies and moths are pinned with their wings spread flat, which takes a spreading board and paper envelopes to carry them home without rubbing off their scales. Several protected insects are butterflies, so the species lists matter most here.

Start here

Add the butterfly gear to your kit, then practice spreading on a common moth from your porch light before you try a butterfly you care about.

K-State 4-H: Tips for spreading butterflies and moths

Found-dead only.A collection built entirely from insects that died on their own. It grows slowly and the specimens are often worn, but nothing is killed and no land rules apply inside your own home.

Start here

Check windowsills, light fixtures and car grilles this week. Soften anything brittle overnight in a sealed tub with a damp paper towel, then pin it like a fresh specimen.

Pinned butterflies, moths and small beetles spread across a white board — Butterflies and beetles, pinned

Pinning and labeling basics

Where the pin goes. Beetles

Through the right wing cover near the front. True bugs: through the small triangle between the wings, right of center. Flies, bees and wasps: through the thorax, right of the midline. Grasshoppers: through the back of the collar plate, right of center. Butterflies and moths: through the middle of the thorax.

One height for everything.

A stepped pinning block sets the insect, the locality label and the name label at the same three heights on every pin, which is what makes a drawer look like a collection.

Labels that last.

Small, on heavy acid-free paper, in pigment ink. Ballpoint and printer ink fade or run. Give the place in enough detail that a stranger could find it in fifty years.

Softening dry specimens.

An insect that has gone brittle can be pinned after a day or two in a sealed tub with a damp paper towel.

Tiny insects wait.

Anything smaller than a grain of rice is too small to pin directly and is mounted another way. Stick to larger specimens while you learn.

Rows of small moths seen from a low angle, each one on its own tall pin — Small moths, one to a pin

What trips beginners up

A foam-lined wooden box holding a large pinned beetle and a walking stick, with names handwritten beside them — Names written beside the specimens

Naming a specimen to species is often impossible without a microscope. Getting to order and family is a good first-year result.
Your first pinned insects will sit crooked, with legs at odd angles. That improves quickly with practice.
Carpet beetles eat dried insects and can hollow out a box in a season. A tight lid is the main defense.
Do not use sewing pins. They are too thick, too short and they corrode inside the specimen.
Do not put off the label. A week later you will not remember which field the insect came from.
Do not keep everything in the net. Twenty of one common beetle teaches you less than one each of twenty kinds.
Do not store the box in sunlight or a damp basement. Light bleaches colors and damp grows mold.

Safety

Chemical killing jars use flammable solvents with strong fumes. The freezer does the same job, so skip them, above all with children in the house.
Let bees, wasps and anything you cannot identify walk from the net into a vial on their own. Do not pinch them.
Tall grass means ticks. Wear long pants, and check yourself after every outing.
If you find fine dust under a specimen, pests are in the box. Put the whole closed box in the freezer for a week or two.

Where to learn

Identification is the skill that takes longest, and free help is good. Photograph a specimen and post it for a suggested name, then check that against a printed field guide. University extension services and 4-H programs publish free pinning guides written for first-year collectors, and a regional entomological society will put you beside people who can show you in ten minutes what takes a month to work out alone.

Free help with names and methods

Rows of pinned longhorn, stag and rhinoceros beetles on a pale board — Beetles sorted into rows

How the kit fits together

A shallow wooden box of beetles and a cicada under glass, each with a small printed name, on a black background — A small glass-topped box

The three purchases that matter are the net, the pins and the box. Choose a net with a deep, fine mesh bag at least 12 inches across and a handle you can swing with one hand: a bag deeper than the rim is wide lets you fold it over to trap the catch. Buy real insect pins in size 2 or 3, which suit most specimens. Size 1 and thinner bend in the foam. The box needs a firm foam floor at least 3/8 inch thick and a lid that closes tightly all the way round, because that seal is what keeps pests out. Everything else on the list is small and cheap. The butterfly gear is the only part you can skip entirely if you are not spreading wings.

Stock the pinning bench

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out. The two butterfly lines stay out until you switch that add-on on.