WillM
New Member
Posts: 14
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Post by WillM on May 26, 2012 8:28:22 GMT -8
After 10 years of light trapping for beetles 2012 seems to be the worst ever for me. It would be interesting to hear how others are doing, good or bad. Maybe it was all those tornadoes in the early spring 8^(
Will
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Post by nitelightman on Jul 14, 2012 12:39:09 GMT -8
Your post was from May but I thought I would reply to it anyways. It has been an odd season. I am from north Georgia and we had unusally warm winter temperatures this past winter. It had me thinking it was going to be a banner year for insects. Unfortunatley some things are not easy to predict. My setup is 4, 48 inch blacklights mounted vertically with two Quantum 385,s in the 24 " length mounted horizontally on top. It's a real tractor beam. This season though has been weird. A very early burst of Lunas with some Tulip tree moths then a long dry spell. I had been waiting for the last week in June for the Hercules beetles to show up. In past years I have averaged 6 to seven females and several males. But this season one small female is all that showed up. The quantity of Large silk Moths is down as well. I will be trapping through September but will probably write this off as a down year.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Jul 14, 2012 18:02:38 GMT -8
This is my first full season collecting, so I don't have anything to compare it to. So far this season, I have had 4 female Hercules beetles caught at my light sheet and I picked up one small male at the gas station. One of the females was caught last night and I would have had another large male had I showed up at the gas station a few moments earlier. It is always sad to see such a beautiful insect crushed in a parking lot like that. From the looks of it, it was killed less than ten minutes before I got there. As for the moths, I have seen many Amorpha juglandis and several other Sphingidae have been showing up sporadically. I think I saw around a dozen Lunas, but they haven't shown up for about a month now. There have been quite a few tulip tree moths around here too. I had a handful of Polyphemus moths arrive while the Lunas were showing up. I have also seen four each, regal and imperial moths.
Most of this was caught at a simple setup with a white bed sheet and a self ballasted 160w m.v. light bulb until I accidentally let it rain on the lit bulb about a week ago. Until my replacement bulbs arrive, I have downgraded to a blacklight cfl and a regular tube blacklight (the kind you would see at parties, not the "professional" kind). Three of the tulip tree moths showed up at the blacklights as well as one of the imperials. I have a regular incandescent hooked up down there as well that I only turn on periodically so I can see better when searching around the setup for beetles in the grass. Last night the regular bulb had been on for about a minute when one of the female Hercules beetles showed up. Other than that, I have only had a handful of different kinds of beetles show up.
I live about an hour south of Atlanta, in Upson county.
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Post by nitelightman on Jul 15, 2012 13:55:41 GMT -8
Last night was pretty good.One large female Hercules, ( I hope she has some eggs for me ) and a large Luna with a minor hind wing tear and a very nice Imperial moth male. In addition a C Scrutator. Along with some grape vine beetles and misc. sphinx moths
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Post by nitelightman on Jul 16, 2012 4:48:13 GMT -8
After heavy rains, last night turned out well. 3 nice Imperials, some tiger moths and several nice beetles. Still looking for more D Tityus.
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