at 8:30 the narrator clones the insect and moves it to the right and then deletes the original and proceeds to work on the clone. I cannot figure out how he accessed the original to delete it.
thanks for the clarification
At 8:30, he presses Shift+S which does a snapshot of the mesh (not a clone). Then he moves the working mesh to the right (Alt+LeftMouse move) so you can see the snapshot. To remove the snapshot, I believe he pressed Ctrl+N which clears the document layer.