Collecting with a light trap

[Will Milne 0]

Hi

 

I mostly hang out in the photo section- but thought some folks here may have advice/thoughts. on a new project.

 

I am looking at using a light trap- probably a home made Skinner type with battery operated UV light sources. Plan is to trap Moths for a photo project, but I am curious if anyone has used a light trap for collecting Mayflies/Stoneflies etc. If so how usefull was the experiment?

 

 

ty in advance.

 

Will

[Ethan Bright 0]

Will,

 

Generally light-trapping for stoneflies yields meager results, and captured specimens are probably accidental rather than an individual exhibiting positive phototaxis. If you wish to use a trap, it's better to use a Malaise trap, details of which you can get off the web using a search engine, or just checking rocks, stream-side structures, and bark, or doing sweep netting of stream-side vegetation. Light-trapping (particularly UV, which you can buy at a hardware store), on the other hand, will yield many more mayflies, and it's often the preferred method of sampling the short-lived adults.

 

Cheers, Ethan

[Will Milne 0]

Hi Ethan

 

Many thanks for the info. I suspected mayflies and caddis would light trap fairly well. I will try and build a Malaise for Stoneflies and see how that goes. I do stream sample etc but the trap approach seems like a usefull way of being in more than one place at a time:)

 

Will