Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 102. (Budapest 2010)
Oláh, J.: New species and new records of Palaearctic Trichoptera in the material of the Hungarian Natural History Museum
66 J. Oláh MATERIAL AND METHODS This study is based on specimens preserved in 70-80% alcohol. In order to observe morphological details in the genitalia, the entire abdomen was removed and placed in a small glass beaker of 25 cm 3 with 10% KOH solution and boiled for 5 to 15 minutes for digestion. When sufficient material was available, the rest of the body, the head and the thorax without wings were also placed in the same glass beaker together with the abdomen and boiled in order to remove the soft tissues for reliable detection of the sclerotised groove and wart pattern on head and thorax. The setal wart pattern of the entire head and thorax with all the anatomical parts are rarely described and figured in species descriptions or performed only on intact animals, without tissue treatment. In many untreated specimens the wart and groove patterns are poorly visible and frequently indiscernible, especially if the warts have the same colour as the cranial sclerites, or if the setae on the warts are not detached and the warts are densely covered by intact setae. Clearing the entire wingless body give us very useful information on the setal wart pattern for species descriptions. Here we use our trinominal terminology to describe the groove and setal wart patterns on the head ( OLÁH & JOHANSON 2007). We used our functional appendicular terminology and not the conventional anatomical directional terminology to describe the genital structures in species descriptions (OLÁH & JOHANSON 2008). The duration of the treatment is adjusted individually to the effectiveness of clearing process, which depends on the species or even on the nutritive state of tissues or on the physiological condition of the specimens. The process of digestion can be easily followed by transparency. The dissolution rate of the soft tissues, the clearing transparency is clearly visible to naked eye. The digested abdomen, head and thorax were subsequently transferred to distilled water and the macerated tissue was removed mechanically by finetipped forceps and needles. The cleared wingless animal was transferred to 80% ethyl alcohol, then to glycerine for examination under microscope. Different sized pins modified to support ring bottom were introduced into the abdomen and used to hold and stabilise the genitalia in lateral, dorsal and ventral position for drawing. However, the plane of view is never perfect and we made no special procedures of grid, matrix or reflection to produce absolute mirror symmetry of the drawings. Instead, the genital structures are drawn exactly as seen in the microscope. However, setae are represented only by their alveoli and moreover their density is only symbolic. If essential the setal length or setal shape are presented by drawing a single or a few setae only. The genital structures were traced using a drawing tube mounted on a WILD M3Z microscope. Careful studies of wing venation were carried out on the right wings mounted on dry permanent slides or on freshly cut right wings if permanent wing preparation was not produced. The cut right wings were carefully managed under glass cover in deep glycerine solution in order to stretch perfectly. A simplified presentation of the wing shape and wing pattern was prepared by bold wing shape contour and dotted pattern lines. The wing pattern delineated by dotted lines is not specified whether dark, light or coloured and not distinguished whether membrane or setal origin. If pattern was not contrasting the dotted line was set on the middle on the density transition. Studies on the maxillary palps, groove and wart pattern or other head and thoracic characters, leg claws and spurs, were carried Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 102, 2010
