Zoom in to see this specimen in more detail. This is a male
sandfly specimen from the entomology collection. Its scientific
name is Phlebotomus sergenti. Tiny specimens like this one are
kept on microscope slides to preserve them. Insect researcher
Shazia Mahamdallie studies sandflies at the Museum. There are
hundreds of species of sandlfy so after collecting specimens,
the first thing Shazia needs to do is identify them. Shazia
dissects the fly into two parts, the head separate from the
thorax and abdomen. She then mounts them on to slides, which
allows her to easily locate important taxonomic characters using
a compound microscope (at up to 400x magnification). Once all of
the identifying features have been examined Shazia can determine
the species of the specimen. After a specimen has been
identified, the slide is covered with a cover slip and sealed.
Shazia labels the slide with the species name, sex, location of
capture and a unique Museum accession number. She then stores
them in the Museum's collection