Ideas for a collection board game

I am working on an idea for a game where players act as scientists trying to collect rare species of insects to sell to a museum.

I am just in the sketching out ideas stage and I am really new to the whole game design thing so any help with vocab and stratagies for design would be welcome.

The players would move along a a long game board with 4 different paths through a rainforest. The paths would cross over each other and at every cross the players would have to make a choice about the path that they continue on. All paths would end at the museum of natural history where the players sell their collections.

There would also be a series of tiles that could be placed along the path. The tiles would either have an insect on them or a hazard of some sort. players would draw and place the tiles on a the path during their turn and when landing on a path space occupied by a tile they would either collect the tile or react to the hazzard presented by the tile.
Some hazards would cause them to loose an insect to the bag or to another player, to loose a turn or to move back to the last crossroads and take the other path

So...
on a typical turn a player would draw a tile, place it on the board and then move along the path. If they landed on a space occupied by a tile they would collect it or react to it. The object of the game is to be the collector that sells the most insects to the museum. My idea there is that the museum will buy only 1 specimine of each insect, so the first to arrive has an advantage in that the museum will buy all of their insects that are not doubles.

I am considering a couple of different possiilities for how the players would move through the game and here is where I need help:

1- When a player reaches a crossroads should they get to choose the path they continue on or should they flip a coin? I am leaning toward flipping a coin but I don't want the game to get too random

2- How should I determine how many spaces a player moves- I was origionally thinking dice - But I worry that dice will be so random that it would take strategy out of the game. I was also considering letting players have a hand of three cards with move numbers on them, they could play one card and move that number of spaces. I am worried that that would be too easy because players could place "good" tiles where the know they are going to move. Maybe have some sort of system where the move cards are face up so that other players can place their tiles accordingly?

4. Should I have a limit to the number of insects a player collects- I was toying with the idea of only letting them collect 6, then i'd have to decide if they are required to collect an insect they land on or if they could decide not to collect it. Players would need to land on hazard tiles that let an insect escape in order to free up space in their collections, they could also sabotage other players collections. I worry though that limiting the collections would make the first player to arrive at the museum the winner for sure (something I don't necesarily want)

3- After a player reaches the museum and sells their collection should they keep drawing and placing tiles? I kind of like the idea that they will because this would give them a chance to "protect" their assets by booby trapping any player they thought would come arrive at the museum with more inects to sell.

Anyway,
I'd like any ideas you have

thanks