At the last new moon I tagged along with some of the University of Illinois’ intrepid entomology graduate students on a collecting trip. On arriving at a patch of prairie outside of town, the students hung a mercury vapor lamp in front of a sheet, powered up a generator, and waited for the catch to fly in. The set-up attracts insects like a porch light, only more so.
Below are some photos from the evening.






What would PZ Myers say…
“question everything” ??
I have a few questions about how best to do blacklighting:
– Is the spectrum of the light important, or will any light work as long as it is intense enough?
– About how far will an insect fly to reach a light? Is it better to be facing an open field for a long line-of-sight, or facing a stand of bushes or trees that will probably have more things roosting in them?
– What time of night does one normally draw the most insects?
It’s been a while but here is a link and what I remember:
http://www.beetle-experience.com/blacklight.htm
-white to blue wavelengths work much better than yellows and reds; coleman lanterns work fine if you don’t have electricity.
-some insects will come in to the most intense light while others will only come to the edges of illumination; you want as big a target area as possible with a range of illumination intensity. we used to go 3 sheets wide with the light source only in center, but there were a lot of us collecting.
-insect species vary in the timing, season, and how far they fly as you would expect
-you want the largest circumference for the line-of-sight as you can get, and as dark a night as you can get, but each spot is different and nearby habitat composition matters, eg a stream or pond, woodland, etc.
-different species fly at different times, eg dusk vs late night with dusk very important for some species.
-you get some very wierd stuff coming in that will totally surprise you, almost guaranteed.
Great fun, bring friends.
Any tips on how you achieved such a perfectly white background?
I love the fireflies.
this is so great, can you add my email any for any future work displays,I LOVE INSECTS