Identifying individuals within a brood causes obvious issues in insects: any marking on the cuticle will be lost across larval stages and metamorphosis. A solution is to cut off segments of legs. But I was wondering is there are less invasive methods to do it.
Cutting off leg segments will not work. It might take one molt or two but the insect will heal. It has no chance of transferring to the adult. You could mark them with trace elements, but detecting the trace elements is destructive. How about not being concerned about an individual. If I tag individuals 1, 2, 3, ... 10 and then they molt, does it matter if I now renumber the survivors 1, 2, 3, ... 10 where individual #3 in the new numbering system was #7 in the old system? I guess it depends a bit on how much data you get from each individual and what you are going to do with the data. If you follow them daily (or several times per day) it is likely that you will make fewer mistakes. However, intense monitoring can perturb the system being studied.
Might you be able to introduce a small marker below the cuticle? Sort of like a subcutaneous pet id tag? It would have to be very small. I would guess that the existing market ones are too large (but I have never seen one).
Depending on the biology, there may be opportunity to use individual markers. For instance, hymenoptera larvae will only excrete gut contents before pupation, therefore, theoretically someone could use some ingested marker, such as a dye.
Also consider inducing melanisation as a kind of a tatoo. Some parasites will leave melinised spots on larvae, but I am not sure how long they'll last over development and how hard it it to induce the same. Perhaps a microinjection will do the trick?
Think in that direction and give it a try!..
Maybe you could use one of the tagging methods described in these papers: they are quite simple and efficient.
DC
- Rosati JY, Robinson SD, Devine R. Investigating the Potential of Fluorescent Fingerprint Powders as a Marker for Blow Fly Larvae (Diptera: Calliphoridae). J Forensic Sci. 1 mai 2015;60(3):653‑8.
- Moffatt C. Using Visible Implant Elastomer to tag insects across life stages: a preliminary investigation with blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae). The Canadian Entomologist. août 2013;145(4):466‑70.
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