Thrillhouse
Active member
When I first got into mantids as pets I didn't think very much about pinning them. Then, after they passed away I started looking into it and was kinda shocked that there were so many tutorials on pinning online, but almost nothing on pinning praying mantis. The biggest lesson I learned was that if you want to pin a bug, pick something bigger.
The big fear I had was drying out and relaxing the insects. But, because I put my guys in the freezer after they passed away, I was able to just take them out and let them thaw for twenty minutes and they were easy to manipulate. The wings were definitely the hard pat because they did not want to extend, so I ended up using one pin between the two sets of wings, which might have damaged them a little, so I'll discover what exactly I have once I frame them.
This is just a quick video I made of me trying my best to pretend to be an entomologist. Pinning really requires two hands, so it was hard to film it with my phone at the same time.
The big fear I had was drying out and relaxing the insects. But, because I put my guys in the freezer after they passed away, I was able to just take them out and let them thaw for twenty minutes and they were easy to manipulate. The wings were definitely the hard pat because they did not want to extend, so I ended up using one pin between the two sets of wings, which might have damaged them a little, so I'll discover what exactly I have once I frame them.
This is just a quick video I made of me trying my best to pretend to be an entomologist. Pinning really requires two hands, so it was hard to film it with my phone at the same time.
