This is a spin-off from the "Getting a butterfly to lay eggs" thread.

Papering is a little misleading, but that's what its called. My two most common methods are... 1. In various small sizes of glassine envelopes (like those used in stamp collecting) that can be bought from coin shops and biological supply houses. 2. In various sizes of folded triangles you make from appropriate types of paper. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Glassine is great for use when out in the field (and around home) because they are so fast and easy to use, and are water proof to put in a cooler (or refrigerator) to keep the females alive until you get them home. Triangles are cheap and easy to make, restrict the movement of the female better and so better assure she won't loose scales during captivity. Triangles are the standard way to preserve dried adults for storage or transportation (I have triangle papered specimens in my synoptic collection from the 1800's that are as perfect as the day they were caught). But triangles take some technique to use. With either, gently fold the wings together dorsally (up over the females back), and slide her into the "paper" with her wings leading edges towards the bottom of the envelope or triangle, and close. The reason for this orientation is the folded bottom of the envelope or the long bottom edge of the triangle is less forgiving and will put excess pressure on the body of the female. As I said, I use several sizes. For glassine envelopes I use 3 sizes, with papers I use 5 and they will fit anything from a Pygmy Blue to an Atlas Moth. You'll get a good idea of what size you need (or to make) when you close the wings and look at the size of the triangle that forms the butterfly into. With papers that you make you want extra room equal to about the area of the folded butterfly squared (ie twice as much area). With the glassine youÂll be limited to what you can find available.

Making papers is easy, and free except for your time. I canÂt tell you how many times (but probably hundreds) IÂve been somewhere doing something that had nothing to do with leps when an opportunity presented itself and I had to quickly make a paper on site out of some of the strangest materials youÂd even imagine. Anyway, I do mine with light weight cotton onion paper for many reasons, but for just temporarily doing gravid females something as simple as your daily newspaper will work very well. Typing or computer print paper will work fine too, but they are harder on the wing scales and donÂt give as much for the body, so donÂt get too heavy handed with them. Basically you want to pick the size of the square (that will halve into the triangle) and add extra on two opposite ends for the starting sheet size IOW, make it a rectangle). How much you add to the square will change with the size of the square, but I'd suggest 1/2" total extra on the smallest and as much as 2" extra on the largest. That will give you 1/4" and 1" on each of the fold over ends. The extra is what holds the paper closed once folded, and is also a handy place to write any data you want kept with the lep in it.. Make a few as a trial and that will help you decide on starting sizes for your paper for each size of paper triangle that you want. If I get a chance to go to storage I'll measure mine and post the sizes later.

There are other methods. But these are what have worked well for me for ell over 4 decades, even to ship living adults cross country (Big Brother did not regulate it back then).

Below is a link to a picture of how to fold the paper triangles. One side of the paper is white and the other gray in the picture to better see which way to fold.

Larry