UAE | Environment
Innovative traps and lots of patience to collect insects in UAE
Antonius Van Harten and his assistant Khalid Mahmoud used several traps to collect the insects from a variety of areas including mangroves, saltflats, wadis and mountain tops.
- By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:21 June 7, 2009
Dubai: Antonius Van Harten and his assistant Khalid Mahmoud used several traps to collect the insects from a variety of areas including mangroves, saltflats, wadis and mountain tops.
Light traps, which require electricity, were mainly used in farms where it is very dark at night attracting many species. Through a simple system of slanted slats built around a bulb, the insects fall into a bottle with 70 per cent alcohol to preserve them.
Altogether 19 traps were set out, including in Ajman, the Sharjah Desert Park and National Avian Research Centre in Sweihan.
"These areas are fenced in often and have been left alone for a decade with no camels or goats grazing. More scorpions and spiders and insects are found in these areas," Van Harten said.
Malaise traps look like tarps on tent poles erected at around one metre above the groun and trap insects trying to take flight. As they fly higher and along the material the insects fall in another bottle of alcohol.
A cheaper way to trap bugs is to fill a bowl with water and a drop of detergent. The detergent makes the insects sink, otherwise they would struggle and crawl out the sides.
Moths, butterflies and dragonflies have largely all been recorded so less focus was given to them.
A jar of insects can then take up to two weeks to sort with a lot of creatures measuring less than five millimetres in length.
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