"I am working with a 4-H Entomology group and wondered about the current best method for preserving butterfly or moth caterpillers to exhibit in a collection. Do you know anything about that?"
A researcher wrote recently about some unusual caterpillars I was raising. When I have extras, I will send him some for his studies and records. He wrote, "Drop the larva into water just poured from a boiling kettle into a petri dish (jar lid). It will clench then relax elongated dead and fixed. Don’t let it sit in the water but put it into a screw cap vial of rubbing alcohol.”
I haven't tried it yet but he uses this method when he has reason to preserve a caterpillar.
Dark Form American Snout Caterpillar
The best-preserved caterpillars I have ever seen were freeze-dried. My entomology prof in college had a vacuum-assisted contraption for freeze-drying, and this kept the colors bright which most liquid preservation techniques I have seen will not. You'd probably have to find somewhere to borrow the use of one as I think they're pretty expensive.
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