Unfolding Butterflies

If you have a dried specimen, and wish to unfold it, in my opinion, the best and easiest way of doing it is by placing the specimen into a container with moist paper towel on the bottom. Keep the specimen there for 24 hours. This allows the humidity to soften all of the muscles in the insect, but yet not damaging any of its colors.

The most important tool is the Spreading Board. Though it is possible to use a home made spreading board made from styrophome, these are much more convenient and can be adjusted accordingly to the width of the insect's body.

Ones the insect have being soften up, in this case it have being left in a jar with moist paper towel to relax its muscles, gently squeeze on the sides of the thorax. This will make the wings to separate from each other, thus allowing to insert a wax paper in between for further unfolding. It is best to use Wax Paper, as it is very smooth on both sides, thus reducing friction and minimizing the chances of rubbing off the wing powder. Wax Paper can be found in any Craft Store.

Pin one of the sides down onto the spreading board, so that you can work on properly positioning the opposite wings. As a general rule, the bottom of the top wing should be 90 degrees to the body of the moth.

Ones one side is done, redo the other side to have matching sides. Drying will take no more then 24 hours, unless its a recently wild caught insect, which can take up to 3 days to dry properly. As with most moths, it is best to store them in dark places, other wise in time light will fade out their colors.

24 hours later, I took the wax paper off and here is the result :)!