Short of being an entymologist, I, like many, have a shared love-attraction/revulsion towards insects. I love how even the creepy, insta-goosebump producing specimens are eerily, alien-like, beautiful. After pinning houseflies to a drawing last year, I decided that there was no reason the notch couldn’t be kicked up a bit. After some online hunting, I came across Butterflies and Things, an online wholesaler of spread, unspread, retail, wholesale, and – perfect for my uses – “bulk broken beetles/insects for pieces/parts.” At a highly discounted price, you can order a mystery-bag of random bits. I decided to risk it, half-thinking the bag would be full of common borers and little click beetle pieces that I could have collected myself, but I was extremely happy and surprised to find the quality of the bits I got in the mail last night:
As far as I can tell: some AWESOME hercules-type beetles, a fractured scorpion, wasp, grasshopper-body, the head of a peanut beetle, and what look like… cicadas?! Could I have been so lucky?
The “bag of broken beetles” yielded a surprisingly high number of close-to-intact specimens.
Also ordered were some intact wasps: and they did not disappoint (shivers)!
I admittedly almost dropped the box when I peeled back the bubble wrap to see this partial tarantula. A lifetime of horror movies and tv-shows about parasites and deadly insects has pretty much brainwashed me.
This green guy is 5.5″ long! There is a seam in his (her?) belly where you can see gutting has taken place. These insects are large enough to be taxidermied!
I need to get back to work!
stasia's studio 