andylaw@

Collecting insects was never an easy job. I used a medical syringe with needle to inject formalin into their body tissues as well as to paralyse them.



Well, I was helping my elder brother in his Biology project. The project was compulsory for every Form 6 STPM Biology student. It was about collecting insects and preserving them, at least 25 insects with minimum 5 orders. It was an arduous task as I needed to go to the bush or jungle nearby my house to catch those insects. I caught butterflies, beetles, bees, grasshoppers, dragonfly, stoneflies, and et cetera. The constant mosquito bites during the hunt incurred the displeasure of me. Basically, I used the home-made net to catch the bees and the butterflies.



The insect that I caught the most was the beetle. But I had a tough time operating the insect assiduously with its hard body. It took me a while to inject the formalin to kill it as the needle cannot penetrate through its abdomen without applying high pressure. Then I would insert wet cotton soaked in formalin into its body after I picked out all of its internal parts using forceps. Of course, I wore the surgical mask and hand glove during the operation that took about 10 minutes for each insect.



The worst part came when I operated a cockroach. The smell of the organ was downright awful until I almost ‘choke to death’. Even the surgical mask could not assist me in eliminating the smell. Yet I still need to complete my task. Fortunately, spider is not considered as an insect as I am phobia towards any type of spiders even if the spider was just a minuscule one. The most popular question that people might ask is whether butterfly is an insect or somewhat belongs to the other category. In fact, butterfly is a type of insect; an insect with a pair of large scaly wings.



After a few months, my house was inundated for what my grandma called the worst flood in 20 years. A group of uninvited guests invading my house, apparently to seek refuge as their habitat was naturally seized by cataclysm. Since they were destitute of ordinary human feelings, I took this opportunity to hunt them down one by one. After all, my house was not an asylum for them. The first creature that I killed was a black scorpion.



Using the tongs that my grandmother used to pick charcoals (to boil water for the dumplings – ‘Zong Zi’), I picked the 8-centimetre-long scorpion and threw it inside a pail of hot water to drown it. Those were the days.