Archives par mot-clé : collecting

Sad That It’s Over

Hello everyone,

It’s Mr. Drew’s 5/4 class again.  We are sad to announce that our collection is over.  We had a great two weeks watching our collection bottles gradually fill up with all sorts of flying insects.

We managed to catch quite a few!  We caught a lot more than some of us thought we would.  At the same time though,  some of us estimated we would be catching thousands of insects and we did not quite achieve that.

We did properly predict many of the types of insects we ended up catching.  We caught what we think are some wasps, bees, mosquitoes, and many types of flies, though we are not sure what kind.

Overall it was very interesting and we are glad we got to be a part of such awesome research.

 

Sincerely,

5/4 D

Rain Doesn’t Dampen Our Parade

We had the chance to attach a new ethanol bottle to the Malaise trap for a second week of insect collection.  Hopefully we’ll do as well or better for variety and numbers of bugs, but cooler temperatures might affect what we catch.  Weather conditions today were pretty much 100% cloud cover and light rain.  Winds were calm, but both the caution tape and sign were down, suggesting high winds over the weekend. -Sam, Samara and Sawyer

An interesting insect.
An interesting insect.
Ready for week 2.
Ready for week 2.

Rooftop Trapping in San Diego!

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In San Diego, Calif. we have placed the Malaise traps on the roof of three of our libraries: the Central Library, the Scripps Ranch branch and the La Jolla branch. The weather here has been hot and dry but we have been able to collect a good number of samples which we’ll be sending along soon. The picture here shows the trap on top of our main branch the nine-story Central Library.

Friday 25 Sept in North Vancouver, BC

Today was another cool-ish, showery day (16 C was the high), but even with some of the blustery winds we’ve had, the Malaise Trap and its guy ropes are doing just fine. In fact, it looks as good as it did when we first set the tent-like structure up a week ago. This week generally has been cool at night (8-10 C), with a mix of sun and cloud, and occasional showers.

Interestingly, when you look at the volume from the outside of the nalgene bottle, it looks like there are only enough insects collected to (barely) cover the bottom of the container, but when you take the lid off and look directly inside you see there are dozens and dozens of very tiny insects, along with more usual sizes of flies and one wasp (which looks positively brobdinagian by comparison).

I would estimate individuals at 100 even though by volume they wouldn’t even register on the paper label, much less any of the graduated numbers.

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