Since getting a focus stacking setup and starting to take on identification of some really obscure species I had some luck and some failure. It really did lower my productivity, as in a typical post is more than an hour work for sample preparation, photography, and stacking in Zerene Stacker. At the same time though I added quite a few species new to iNaturalist
If you have interest in trying to build a similar focus stacking system, I described it in detail in the amazon review for the Mitutoyo 5X microscope objective:
I was planning to do one big post of everything I learned since taking this on, but it is pretty clear than aphids deserve their own post.
Aphids are a tough group to identify. In many cases my 5X magnification is not enough, and in extreme cases I was told a 200X phase contrast microscope is absolutely necessary. Still, there are many species which can be identified from a good photo and focus stacking aphids on a slide increases that number substantially.
The first step is collecting some adult aphids, and putting them on a slide. For this I use some combination of the technique described in the USDA video on slide mounting, and the instructions which came with a slide mounting kit I bought to mount the aphids in Euparal
It would be best to heat the slides to dry them, but I just let them sit a day or two. It is clear it takes a couple weeks to completely dry them out. If I get really serious about this, I might switch to Canada Balsam, following this procedure. The advantage there is that the slides should last centuries rather than the years to decades Euparal is likely to survive. At the moment that advantage doesn't mean much to me, but if I end up with a big enough collection it might.
After drying the slides I use my microscope setup to photograph with as much magnification as my setup can do.
Alata:
Typically with the magnification my 5X objective can produce, I can get all those items into perhaps four to six photos.
Some examples of aphids rarely reported on iNaturalist I have been able to identify since taking this on:
Metopolophium dirhodum
Myzus persicae
Macrosiphum euphorbiae
Hysteroneura setariae
Neotoxoptera formosana
Aphis craccivora
Wahlgreniella nervata
Sitobion fragariae
Eulachnus rileyi
About half were checked by @aphidman or @psyllidhipster and seem likely to be right. A couple of the ones I identified without help are likely to get pushed back to genus if I find a look-alike species though.
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As far as identifying aphids, it does seem as if there is quite a bit of information available online. The best sites I have found are:
http://aphidtrek.org/
http://influentialpoints.com/
http://www.aphidsonworldsplants.info/d_APHIDS_AAIntro.htm
What a fantastic addition to i-naturalist! You talk about your lowered productivity, but you are providing some of the first and only publicly accessible (and wonderfully photographed) pictures and ID of these species. Hundreds of Monarchs and Mallards and other charismatic macrofauna have been photographed and documented, but these are unique, very time consuming, and require a great deal of patience to produce. So, thank you for the effort you've put in to these and for sharing your valuable results!
Now if I can only get my wife to believe that. She is pretty sure I have lost it this time. Pictures of charismatic macrofauna or pretty flowers are a couple standard deviations closer to a normal hobby.
What about the aphids?
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