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Passive insect collecting

Hi all,

	There was a thread on these lists a few days ago reg: Collecting
insects for fish food. Well, I had a conversation with my Dad (who is an
entomologist) and he suggested two traps and a two other collecting
methods. These are more or less variations of the ideas already suggested
on the topic already. 

	First, I should say that he also mentioned that Insect Pheremones
(sex attractants secretions) are expensive and used to collect only males
or females of a particular species. They may not be applicable for insect
collecting in a fishy sense (unless you *really* want to feed your fish a
straight diet of , say, Heliothis amigera males - a moth whose larvae are
stem borers). 

Trap 1 (Johnson Trap): This consists of a small barrel or large box with a
8-10" hole cut in the top. A neon (halogen) light bulb of 100-150W is
placed at the bottom with the light shining straight up. A large funnel of
cardboard or stiff paper is placed in the opening of the barrel. This is
placed in a dense section of a garden or wooded area and left for the
night. In the morning, you can find a lot of insects in the barrel.

Trap 2: A flourescent light bulb with a hood on three sides is fixed
vertically above a large funnel which leads to a collecting box/barrel.
The hood has a reflective material on the inside. Insects get attracted to
the light, fall down the funnel when they get tired of circling. This
yields a decent amount and is for use in large open areas.

Collecting 1: Open an umbrella upside down underneath a dense bush and
shake the bush.  For better results do this at night with a light. 

Collecting 2: Something about dragging a sheet through bushes. I doubt if
it is effective on flying creatures. Probably will work on crawling
creatures. 

I also thought that it may be possible to 'siene' the air. Fix a small
siene net to the radiator section and drive around in the country roads.
At the end of the day, you ought to have a few insects.  Probably will
work better if you have one of the models with a nice big radiator and not
the sporty snouted cars. Of course, the net should be loose and not taut
... just like for fish (see, Konrad, you taught me something :). 

hth,
Sajjad
--
Sajjad Lateef  ~ <;))>< ~~  ~~    <http://www.eecs.uic.edu/~slateef/>
sajjad at acm_org ~~  ~~  <;))><     ICQ# 13114451