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Cochineal beetle harvest, by Eadweard Muybridge

Dactylopius coccus, cochineal beetles being harvested from Opuntia cacti, Antigua, West Indies, for the production of carminic acid used in the carmine dye, cochineal. The mode of gathering cochineal in Antigua,by Eadweard Muybridge (purchased 1876 by Joseph Hooker for Kew).

© RBG KEW

Antigua, Archival, Archive, Beetles, Black And White, Botanic Garden, Botanical Garden, British Empire, Cacti, Cactus, Carmine, Carminic Acid, Cochineal, Colorant, Colourant, Crimson, Dacylopius Coccus, Dfemale, Dye, Eadweard Muybridge, Economic Botany, Empire, History, Kew Gardens, Kew Library, Labourers, Mono, Monochrome, Opuntia, Red, Scarlet, West Indies, Women, Workers