He kept a special refrigerator to store and preserve the specimens his admirers sent him — birds, badgers, foxes — and encouraged spiders to keep his workroom relatively free of flies.

The process of collecting and preserving the specimens was rigorous and well documented in existing records.

The species lived around a lake in a volcanically active area and was found in fine-grained volcanic ash lacustrine (lake-bed) deposits, the ash helping to preserve the specimens.