I use Qiagen - DNeasy Blood & Tissue Kit for DNA isolation of single thrips specimens. I recommend you to crush the insect with micropestle in the ATL buffer and to finish the extraction using the producers protocol. Good luck!

Thanks for your valuable suggestion, I will follow the same....

if you have small amout of starting material, you can try this one-works really good:

http://www.qiagen.com/Products/Catalog/Sample-Technologies/DNA-Sample-Technologies/Genomic-DNA/QIAamp-DNA-Micro-Kit

Check on the below method presented in Moritz et al. 2004

Methods and techniques -Molecular key

DNA-extraction

DNA was extracted from different developmental stages of all investigated species with a method modified after Roberts (1998). A single specimen was ground with a micro pestle in a sterile 1,5 ml Eppendorf tube while adding 50µl of extraction buffer (0,2 M Sucrose, 0,1 M Tris, 0,1 M NaCl, 0,05 M EDTA, 0,5 % SDS, pH 9,2). The tubes were heated at 65°C for 15 minutes. After adding 15µl of cold 8 M potassium acetate and incubating on ice for 15 minutes the tubes were centrifuged 15 minutes at 13000 x g. The supernatant was transferred to a clean 2,5 ml tube and 2,5x amount of ethanol was added, followed by spinning at 10000 x g for 15 minutes. The pellet was washed with 70 % ethanol twice and dried before it was re-suspended in 16 µl sterile bi-distilled water.

You can also contact Prof. Moritz at Gerald Moritz: [email protected] for more details.

Or check on the methods provided by Rugman-Jones et al. 2006 available at ecoport.org/storedReference/558076.pdf‎