Insect identification

This week I began sifting through my pitfall traps. Removing large debris from the collection yielded about a tablespoon of small material to sift through. Using a microscope and some tweezers I was able to locate an incredible amount of insects, at least 30 insects from each collection (there have been two collections done so far). My task was to separate the insects according to the orders that they belong to using a dichotomous key. So far I have been able to identify orders such as Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Araneae, Diptera... etc. These insects are very, very small so the biggest challenge I faced this week was overcoming the force of static electricity under the microscope while looking at the insects, the wrong movement could cause the insect to slingshot across the petri-dish a few inches, but at that magnification it may as well have been propelled a mile away. I found a large amount of Diptera larvae which Dr. Ortiz identified as soldier fly larvae (picture attached). This has been very interesting but also awkward since some of the insects died while staring straight up.