Collecting trips, tips, and pics.

[AR-Tarantula]

Looks like a really nice place to work. Here is one of my sites in Arkansas for juxtaposition. Benson Creek Natural Area (site of ivory-bill observation in 2004).

 

[AR-Tarantula]

Malaise trap in a slash woodland in the Grand Prairie of eastern Arkansas. Excellent trap for collecting flies, bees, and wasps. Also good for several groups of beetles. Collecting head filled with 70% ethanol mixed with ethylene glycol.

 

[Dark Raptor]

Wow. This forest looks really nice. In Polish Białowieża primeval forest marshy areas are real 'biodiversity hotspots'. In 2001 my friends collected there more than 300.000 specimens and 727 species of epigeic arthropods. Over 13.000 saproxylic beetles (more than 450 species). 29.341 mycophagous insects (687 species). To sum up. They get, during the whole project, 403.577 specimens belonging to 1800 species. This is probably the reachest place in whole Europe.

 

[Black Hawk]

i built a big light trap this winter. haven't taken it out yet tho, i forgot about it until this thread. i'll have to see it the trees and whatever else behind my house yeild anything interesting. probably just really big katydid and moths but it'll get some pics for you all
EDIT: i won't be able to do it tonight aparently, i'm having trouble with my set up, hopefully i'll be able to get the kinks worked out before too long tho

 

[CustomNature]

Hey folks. It wasnt a bad night I suppose. I got home around 2:30am and I just got the pics and stuff uploaded. We found a ton of chinese mantids, quite a few stickbugs, and a few other odds and ins. I'll post a few pics from the trip now, but I'll post more pics of what we actually found tomorrow. Here they are:

After about 2 and 1/2 hours of driving, we finally made it to our collection location, Lancaster PA.

Here we are heading down the trail to get to some hotspots. Mantis territory! Those are my crew. (Im behind the camera most of these)

Heres a pic I snapped of one of the little guys. All of them are Tenoderas and just about all of them were subadult, except 2 adults we found.

Welp, he was our final reward for the time we spent at the mantis area. 21 total.

 

[CustomNature]

It started getting late here, so we packed up and moved onto another area to hunt for some nocturnal insects. (Thats me in the fatigues!)

Heres me trying the whole "sugaring" technique for the first time. I whipped up a syrup made of pure maple syrup, bananas, and sugar. I didnt have very much luck with it tonight, but thats because we were kind of on a schedule and only were able to check back after about 35 minutes or so.

This last pic is a really cool place. There is a large swamp and right in the center of it is about a 10ft in diameter island. There is a pretty small land-bridge to get out to it, and the island bares a single tree. However, the neat thing about it is thats the ONLY spot to find walkingsticks. We collected about 5 specimens of Diapheromera femorata there tonight, but there were a ton more. Pretty neat peace of land.

Welp, that's enough for me tonight. It's 5:11am now and I really need to get some sleep! I'll post pics of the other critters I caught tomorrow. G'night guys.

 

[CustomNature]

Hey Raptor, when I keep thinking about how you said you wont show you got the carrion beetles, I've got to ask. Did you use pitfall traps or something?? I happened to catch about a dozen of Necrophila americana in a pitfall trap a few weeks ago, but the bait in the trap was a chunk of banana. :?

 

[Dark Raptor]

I see you had succesfull hunting. We have in Poland only one mantid - Mantis religiosa, and this specie is protected.

Yes. Sometimes I'm using pitfall-traps with small pieces of carrion. But the best results gives checking every dead corpse... my favorite are deers :}

I think ecology of Necrophila is very similar to european genus Silpha. They eat carrion of small invertebrates (like snails) and vertebrates (especially rhodents). They can be also attracted by decomposing organic matter (I think ethanol is very imoprtant attractant). So it was possible to catch them in 'banana-trap'.

 

[Black Hawk]

well i set up my light trap last night so here's some pics, i set it up in my backyard and i got some decent insects i think. i caught an assasin bug, three katydids and what looks like some sort of velvet ant :?

 

[Black Hawk]

anyone know what this is? i think it's a velvet ant but i don't know since i've never come across one before btw, it's a good thing i set my trap out last night, tonight they are spraying insecticide from planes over the whole town because they are afraid of West Nile Virus on our misquitos

 

[Dark Raptor]

This one looks like some kind of cerambycid beetle... and I think I see one Mecoptera on that white cloth.

You should try to use UV light. It will attract more insects, especially large moths (like family Sphingidae) and larger beetles.

 

[Black Hawk]

that's why i opted for the mercury vapor light its supposed to pump out visible and UV light i think, i attracted more beetles than anything i'm just not as interested in them sorry Dark Raptor since your interested tho, i suppose it wouldn't hurt to post some pics of the bettles for you.
p.s.- i found out that the pesticide is only supposed to affect misquitos, i sure hope so

 

[Dark Raptor]

Thanks

First and the last one looks like european scarabaeid beetle Serica brunnea, but this one is much darker.
Third one it is some kind of Carabid beetle. I don't like small species so I won't try to ID it
The second one belongs to Chrysomelidae family. It is strange, because they are active during a day.
Fourth one it is Coccinellidae (Ladybird) beetle. I've never seen anything like that. It has strange colour, very different from our european species.

 

[Black Hawk]

Thanks

no problem Dark Raptor, i knew you'd like those
there is also a dead ten-line june bug on my back porch i might go back and get for a collection. i should start one with all the cool bug in my yard ;P i have some collections friends have made with local species, one has a HUGE bettle, and a professional collection i know you'd love to see. i might post pics of some of the pinned specimens later if you beg and plead

 

[Dark Raptor]

i have some collections friends have made with local species, one has a HUGE bettle, and a professional collection i know you'd love to see. i might post pics of some of the pinned specimens later if you beg and plead

You've got no mercy, I've got my proud ;P

I will only say 'Ni!'... ermmmm, that was 'Monty Python and the Holly Grail'... I will only say 'Can you show me later these beetles, please?'

 

[Empi]

good thing i set my trap out last night, tonight they are spraying insecticide from planes over the whole town because they are afraid of West Nile Virus on our misquitos

Yeah that is nice of them to kill of all the insects just to kill the vampires. I wish there were insects big enough to eat people like that! :evil:

 

[Black Hawk]

You've got no mercy, I've got my proud ;P

I will only say 'Ni!'... ermmmm, that was 'Monty Python and the Holly Grail'... I will only say 'Can you show me later these beetles, please?'

don't worry, who wouldn't understand a monty python quote, i mean...it's practically the Bible of cinematography don't worry i'll get you some pics and a cute green shiny bettle i found on the ground here

QOUTE: I wish there were insects big enough to eat people like that! :evil:


sick'em boy ;P

 

[Black Hawk]

here are the pics of the professionally made collection with scientific names for most of them and the last pic is of the shiny bettle i found here


ENJOY DARK RAPTOR :drool:

 

[Black Hawk]

here are the collections friends gave me that they had to make for school, there's a complete shot and a close up of the bettle section for each and then the last one is a close up of the largest bettle in the second collection

 

[CustomNature]

Man Black Hawk, you made out pretty good I'd say. Could you do me a big favor and show a close up pic of your mercury vapor light setup?? I want to make one, but I'm not too "electronically gifted." I was going to buy a fixture at Lowe's the other day, the kind that you would set up above your driveway or whatnot, but I wasnt sure how to convert it so you can just plug it into an AC outlet?? I saw a few bits of electrical tape on your cords and I looked like the rest of the fixture you had separate (I'm assuming it has a transformer of sorts in there), but it certainly got the job done for you. If you can give me any kind of instructions on how to build one, that would be great. I was going to wing it, but I knew with my luck I'd end up frying myself.