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Hi


I will begin here one thread on malaise traps. Hopefully others can share here their respective malaise traps.


Here I have mine mounted yesterday. The first attempt (2009.VIII.25 to 2009.IX.03) - a few days ago - was good but... there were some problems. Now this was the second attempt... and you can see the borrowed malaise trap I mounted yesterday (2009.IX.03 to 2009.IX.08 and then exchanged the bottle 2009.IX.08 to 2009.IX.??). Enjoy.

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another..

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another..

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another..

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another..

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Nice! Looks like it's been a hot and dry summer...

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it is... tomorrow temperatures around 30ºC :D
But it was not so hot like 2003, 2005 and 2007. In 2003 we had nights over 35ºC :s (ONE WEEK!!!). But the weather cooled down... :(

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This is a trap in my garden, next to the cage of my dog.
alt 800m, Nikko, Japan.
I have two maraise traps in Nikko, running whole fly season, Feb. to Nov. Hymenopterans are captured always more than flies:|.

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dear Dhalma, you forgot to attach the image. Check if there are no spaces in the filename and if the file has below 195 kB.... :)

Yes, that's true. Parasitica hymenopterans are the first in numbers we can see in the samples. :) Here specially EVANIIDAE wasps. I have caught over 100 specimens!

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did you catch any acrocerids, nemestrinids, and specially mythicomyiids, Dhalma? :)

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Ooooooops!
Result in one day in June.

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:o I wish to have so many flies!!! :|
they seem to be much more nematocerans than brachycerans...

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Acrocerids must be there in samples:D.
I don't think I cought any nemestrinids or mythicomyiids here in Nikko, Unfortunately:(.

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do you know the possible genus of those acrocerids?

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No idea on Acroceridae. I have never tried to identify them. I will attach photos of them when I found them in bottles. Or I can send them to you, if you like.
It will be very helpfull, if you could identify them.

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Many thanks!!! I'm interested in those acrocerids. At least I will know by sure the genus. For species, I will need more references but no worries because I will have access to them. ;)

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Empidoids are welcome any time, from any trap. :D

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Any Heleomyzids ? Heleomyzoids are welcome too.
It would be interesting to see any . :|

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Hi. Paul, Hi. Andrzej

Empidoids were sent to my collegue,
...... nothing is left in my hand,
I have to see new materials.

Heleomyzidae... Must be there, let me see.

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Hi,

just now I'm very busy at the work so I have time to run only one trap. This place was good last year and has been even better this summer. I don't have too much time to go trough everything so I pick up only 30-40 most interesting flies every day. All kind of late summer flies from rare Syrphidae and Sciomyzidae to Heleomyzidae, Muscidae and some very common Sepsidae. As You can see our nature is far from fresh at this time of the year but for some reason there are more flies now than a month ago. This place is in Helsinki Finland, very near our home.

Jari

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Yes, it look very autumnal in Finland :( Here the mornings are getting cold and it is feeling more like the start of autumn every day.

Are you still catching tachinids there? Last weekend was very poor in Dorset but I hope to get something when I go out this afternoon to a few nature reserves :)

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Not too many Tachinidae any more, only some Siphona every day. Anyway this is the area where I got Siphona grandistyla 2006 so You never know ...:)

Jari

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I wait with baited breath! ;)

I have very little to report from down here - 2 good nature reserves visited and the only tachs I can report were lots of Tachina fera and Siphona cf geniculata plus a few lonely-looking Exorista cf rustica :(

I am glad it is still summer down near Jorge's malaise trap :)

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Sorry, this is not on Diptera.
Somebody asked me about wasps in my trap.
This is a giant wasp 'Vespa mandarina' captured in my Malaise trap yesterday. Common:(
This terrible wasp will attack my poor bee hives in autumn, in big number.:o

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It's HUGE!

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"The hornets can devastate a colony of honey bees: a single hornet can kill as many as 40 honey bees per minute thanks to their large mandibles which can quickly strike and decapitate a bee"

YouTube Video


Another curious thing on Vespa mandarinia "The toxicity of Vespa mandarinia venom is actually somewhat lower than that of honeybee (Apis mellifera) venom. The median lethal dose (LD50), a dose at which 50% of subjects will die, is 4.1 mg venom per kg body weight (injected in vitro in mice) for Vespa mandarinia and 2.8 mg/kg for honeybee venom. Whereas the honeybee is more toxic, the much larger hornet usually injects a greater quantity of venom, so a hornet sting may be in fact a bit more dangerous. But given the fact, that humans will usually survive several dozen or even hundreds of bee stings without lasting consequences, it becomes evident that claims like "three hornet stings will kill a man" are nonsense. No healthy man dies from only three Vespa mandarinia stings!"

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Hey Dhalma,
And what about the syrphids you catch in your traps??
I'd be intersted in those if you don't do anything with them??
Greetings,

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Hi. Konnichiwa.

As far as I know, most of the Vespa victims were killed because of allergic shock.
Though 3 times I have been stinged by Vespa hornets, I am ok so far.

Yes, it is just like the video in my bee field.
But I keep Japanese bee, instead of European bee.
They developed a strategy to protect themselves.
As they know how to fight against Hornets, the attack of Vespa mandarina is not that serious.

Syrphids, yes. I keep many. Most of the flies are kept first for my Museum.

By the way, what do you have in the bottle of your Malaise traps, or how do you kill insects in your trap, everyone?
As I set them for long period in same place, it is not possible to pick up insects every day.
I put pure Propylene Glycol in the bottle, as coleopterists do.
Tell me please, what you do to collect flies by Malaise trap in good condition.

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Hi,

I use so called "dry malaise" with poison buttons. It keeps me busy, because You must empty the bottle every day (or every second). Many of the flies are still alive and in very good condition. Just now problematic are the spiders. They live long enough to spread their web arond the flies. After pinning every fly will have a five hours acetone bath to keep colours clear.

Jari

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Hello, JariF

What is poison buttons? Some kind of insecticide?

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I'm at work just now and can't remember the name. They are yellow tablets from Pherobank in Holland. One tablet lasts nearly whole summer in one trap. Some kind of nerve poison that they use with Unitraps with pheromones.

Jari

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I use ethanol 70%. It is very cheap and clean.

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In NA a standard killing agent in Malaise and pheromone traps is DDVP (Dichlorvos). Just a small piece (1 cubic cm) will probably last all season. It is usually dissolved into a hard plastic. It is a bit oily, so place it in a foil or plastic wrapper with minute pin holes to let the gas escape. Should kill insects within 30 minutes.

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I love those wasps... they're great! :D

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Apparently they are already active in Southern Europe as well, not only killing bees but also attacking people selling shrimps on fish markets over there. A colleague of mine has a bee-keeping friend in France who has to battle the wasps at times and he will ask him to send us some dead ones. It probably is only a matter of time before the wasps show up here, either in person or in the press as a possible thread to local wild life (including man).

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Thank's Tony. That is just the thing I am using. DDVP was the name :)

Jari

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Jari, where do you buy that DDVP (Dichlorvos)?
And how much it cost? Thank you in advance.

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.... which reminds me to repeat my question to Paul... :)

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Theo Peeters indeed already received several request for information about this species, like from the Ministery of Agriculture......

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You'll have to wait. I don't have a proper work place set up here yet while they are refurbishing my office-to-be. :D

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Thank you for the comments everyone.:D
In Japan, we can buy DDVP for domestic use, but, we have to make signature at shop when we buy them, sometimes ID needed to.

I used to use DDVP for trap. But, as stupid beetles and moths destroy my craneflies before they die, I started to use Ethanor or propylene glycol.

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Jorge,
amd maybe other people, here in Greece I have found that the plastic of the connecting ring deteriorates in the sun, and then the bottle falls out and you can lose some catch, also it is tricky to make a new one, although I have done it. What is better is to wrap a few cycles of electric tape around the connector, this helps protect it from the sun and prolongs its life. The sun is a powerful force here in the south.

Gordon

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Here is a picture that is self explanatory, the bottles are 250 ml. It is one week's worth of Malaise samples, but note that the Sultanitsa trap, while not the best is doing pretty well thank you.

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The important thing about the Sultanitsa trap is that it wasn't a malaise trap. See picture. I do not of course know what a true malaise trap would have caught in the same place, but a lot of stuff could have escaped at ground level, it was very uneven and treacherous.