Insect Trapping Methods

There are many techniques people use to collect insects and many of these are best to collect only specific taxonomic groups.  For example, when beetles fly and then run into something, they may either alight on an object or fall to the ground.  Flight intercept traps that look like the one here, can be very effective.  In this case

I have simply stretched plastic sheeting between metal posts and placed elongated plastic bins (that are commonly sold in hardware stores to soak wallpaper) on the ground & then dumped in about 2 inches of water to which I have added about a tea-spoon of liquid anti-bacterial dish-washing soap.  At least once each day, I pour the water through a small net (like you would use for aquarium fish) and then empty the net into a small white dish (like a margarine container) that contains 70% alcohol.  Take a look at the picture below:

If you look carefully, you'll see a paper label, written in pencil (so it won't dissolve in the alcohol) with a date in June 2005.  In the alcohol you'll see lots of insects including some large rove beetles & click beetles along with lots of flies (especially some big Tabanids) but other things as well.  This one dish likely has over 70 or 80 things in it and they are a very diverse group of things.  I'll pour specimens in alcohol into small jars (I use baby food jars) from 1 trap's harvest for a 1 or 2 day stretch, and then put them in 5 gal. plastic boxes that transport nicely in my car.  I can then store the boxes easily until I get the chance to mount the specimens weeks or months later.

A flight intercept trap is based on the idea that many insect drop when they fly into something.  Many other insects do the reverse; they fly upwards when they fly into something.  A trap that relies on this behavior is a malaise trap.  Pictured below is one, showing a screen "apron" along the top edge that slopes upward.

At the top of this is a funnel that leads up into a large detachable jar.  This trap is especially effective to sample many kinds of flies, bees and wasps.  In one place in Wisconsin, up in an area of the Chequamegon forest, I trapped over 1,000 horseflies and deerflies in 1 day.