Speeding up scientific illustrations. A method toavoid time consuming pencil drawingsparticularly in arthropods

Abstract

The most time consuming part of a taxonomic description is to make the illustrations. This contribution shows how to save time by omitting the pencil drawings of arthropod appendages and replacing them by microphotographies. These are imported into a drawing software on a computer for making a publication ready line drawing. The photographic method requires a special treatment of the appendages which is also shown.