I would love to learn some new tricks on photographing aquatic insects.

Tell us more about what you have access to (tidal estuary? mountain stream? city?) and you will get more pertinent answers.

We would be pleased to hear about all options! Especially mountain streams as they sound like a hard place to catch anything! I know people use Petri dishes with some background layer to photograph insect larvae, sounds like a good tip, but how exactly do they catch them? Where it’s possible to buy …

I don’t know the answer to that question, but we went on a field trip to look for insects in fast mountain streams. The Prof wore waders and brought another big guy. One kicked over stones and the other was downstream maybe 8-10 feet holding a screen between two posts to catch anything that came l…

[image] marina_gorbunova: Where it’s possible to buy a scoop net fitting for water or at lest is there an official name for it to search up? Here´s where many would go to buy a kit for this in UK : https://www.nhbs.com/1/aquatic-survey?q=&fR[hide][0]=false&fR[live][0]=true&fR[shops.id][0]=1&f…

I have access to a creek behind my house.

Find a plastic bowl, tray, or tub meant for food – white or clear both work pretty well for photographic lighting, and flat-bottomed is better for maintaining a consistent focal distance with a moving-around organism. You can use it to scoop stuff out of running water in streams. You can use it to…

[image] marina_gorbunova: Where it’s possible to buy a scoop net fitting for water or at lest is there an official name for it to search up? I bought an OK telescopic pond net on Amazon for not a lot of money: about US $ 35.00. Telescopic means that you can stand up on the side of a pond and …

A kitchen sieve is a cheap way to start. It can be used in standing water, or in streams. Sweep it through a water body and look to see if anything is inside. Immersing it some water allows smaller organisms to be picked out. Scoop up some mud and swish the sieve around to wash the mud away, then lo…

I would recommend taking a look at BioQuip’s website on purchasing aquatic insect collecting equipment: https://www.bioquip.com/Search/WebCatalog.asp?category=15000&prodtype=1 There are many, many methods for collecting many different species.

Here is some very cheap equipment that I can suggest for a first look at macroinvertebrates (it’s fun for kids too): plastic bottle that is cut to serve as a bucket spoon and tweezers to transfer and sort fishing net for kids or kitchen sieve (mesh size should be 5mm at most) white ice cube tray, …

Tips on finding and photographing aquatic insects

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Tips on finding and photographing aquatic insects

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