Sweet baits and fermented baits have long been used by entomologists for arthropod trapping. Increasingly, it seems that arthropods are mainly responding to the volatiles produced by the microorganisms inhabiting these baits, rather than the bait material specifically. Microbial volatiles can signal anything from food sources to mating opportunities to danger, or other elements of habitat suitability.

Here are links to some papers on this subject that might interest you, and could help to develop new attractants or research projects:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=entomologyother

http://www.aseanbiotechnology.info/abstract/21022293.pdf

http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/229/art%253A10.1007%252Fs10886-013-0306-z.pdf?auth66=1382791887_bacbc984f0e4067e799bfb8bff38febf&ext=.pdf

Thanks, Thomas, it is interesting.

Hi Libor,

In tropical Africa we regularly use fruit bait to attract certain groups of butterflies in the Charaxinae, Limenitinae and Satyrinae subfamilies of Nymphalidae (they are also known as fruit-feeding butterflies if you type this term in scholar.google.com you'll receive many search results). The cheapest and most widely available bait is mashed banana, but papaye, mango and pineapple could also be used. You can also mix different fruits to attract more species, and fasten the fermentation with adding some ethanol (or drinks with ethanol contents). I often use palw-wine, which is a fermented sugary sap tapped from palm trees, especially from oil-palm and raffia. Some keen collectors also use boiled eggs and rotten fish, but I'd rather avoid being poisond by these substances...

Of course, many of these baits attract other insect groups as well, I often encounter Cetoniid or Scarabeid beetles in traps and they are always full of Diptera. Occasionally bees and wasps also enter the traps.

Cheers, Safi

Hi Safi. Thanks for your post. I know banana traps, they were used, e.g., in Gordon Ramel's research of the Kerkini wetland, northern Greece. Do you have any papers on this topic, mainly from the Palaearctics?

Honey and canned tuna (packed in water) on the same bait station is amazingly powerful at attracting ants. The combination works extremely well.

Kyle, where are you trapping? And do you have any free material for identification? I am interested in Hymenoptera: Vespidae, Diptera: Anisopodidae, Dermaptera, and Mecoptera especially.

Libor, mostly tropical islands is where I work. I'm not going for winged insects, so I leave the bait station for 60-120 min and when I return collect representative species from the bait status with forceps, storing them in labelled cryovials filled with ethanol.

Kyle, do you have any free Dermaptera for our museum from your traps?

I'm sorry, probably not. All of our species here are non-native, exotics

We are interested in all available material, so also in non-native species from exotic islands. OK, you know about our interest. If you will get some Dermaptera, you know, where could be kept :-)

Dear Libor

It seems that you are not working with butterflies.

Anyway, a trick which is important to reduce the bias Male/Female with these insects is to add Rum (brown one works better) at the last moment (surely any sugarcane distilled strong alcohol will work).

For butterflies we reduced considerably the bias in favour of males in our traps.

I've got no idea if such bias exists for your insects, but if so...try it !!!

Cheers from Luc

Attached one of my publication around this problem.

Article Sex-dependent seasonal feeding activity variations among two...

Dear Luc. In my traps, some Noctuidae including Catocala are regularly trapped, as well as some Nyphalids, as both our Apatura, Polygonia c-album, and mainly the worst drunker among them, Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta :-)

Do you have any Dermaptera from your traps? Our museum would appreciate similar samples.

BTW: Very interesting paper!

Regards

Libor

Hi Libor,

Sorry, no paper from the Palaearctics. I tried traps in Hungary with sugary red wine mix, with very little success :) We are more successful with ropes though....

Best wishes

Safi

Hi Libor,

I often use a mixture of honey, beer with several drops of acetic acid sprayed at leaves of trees or shrubs which are insolated. It is attracive for solitary and social wasps, cuckoo-wasps, sphecids, dipteras, etc. Insects are caught by entomological net.

Regards Pavel

I've been using these lures a lot lately. I have a big collecting different insects. If you are interested, write to my e-mail [email protected]