evra
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Post by evra on May 13, 2022 11:49:07 GMT -8
It says 1002Wh, so it could run a 175w MV for a little less than 7 hrs on full charge, which isn’t terrible, but for the same price as a generator, the performance isn’t quite there. I wonder how long it takes to recharge on solar cells? Probably an entire day or more I would imagine. On a multi-night collecting trip I would definitely prefer a generator.
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evra
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Post by evra on Apr 25, 2022 12:42:05 GMT -8
The peak flight would be right around now at lower elevations. At higher elevation it would be late June or early July. Then there is also another flight in late July and early August at lower elevations. They feed on Ptelea trifoliata at low elevations and Fraxinus and Prunus at higher elevations.
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evra
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Post by evra on Mar 10, 2022 18:54:14 GMT -8
Wind is the single worst weather condition for lighting. Worse than either cold or pouring down rain. The key is to try to let as much wind through your sheet as possible. So sheets with holes in it or white screen mesh is the best.
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evra
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Post by evra on Feb 27, 2022 13:25:29 GMT -8
I do something quite similar to what you describe. I primarily collect North American moths. I have the locality information in one table, and then I use the prepopulated table from MPG for the taxonomy. Since MS Word has SQL integration, in order to make my labels I populate only a few things, such as Hodges Number, date, locality, and sex and it populates the rest of the data (Genus, species, county, state, latitude, longitude, elevation, collector) automatically into my label which I print out on cardstock.
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evra
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Post by evra on Feb 10, 2022 21:16:30 GMT -8
Nice beetles. D. granti isn’t really any bigger, it just has a longer thoractic horn. Unlike D. tityus, granti is really abundant in the right habitat at the right time. Last year I had so many on my sheet one night that the weight of the beetles congregating at the top caused it to sag. Like Chrysina gloriosa, it is strongly associated with alligator juniper.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 31, 2022 15:12:44 GMT -8
Chalcolepidius smaragdinus is a very pretty one as well. Metallic green with metallic blue legs and antennae.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 29, 2022 12:48:07 GMT -8
They are very common in the Southwest and aren’t aggressive at all. Most species I see have females in the 70mm range, but in the very SE corner of Arizona there’s a species that’s substantially larger, with a wingspan of 90mm or so.
A bunch of different insects mimic Pepsis as well. Cerambycids in the genus Tragidion. An Asilid, Wyliea mydas. A Mydid, Mydas xanthopterus. Also a Sesiid, Alcathoe pesioides. I normally don’t collect beetles and flies, but I find mimicry to be pretty interesting. So I collect these when I see them.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 28, 2022 17:27:37 GMT -8
Yeah, it’s not a full strip, but about half. The trap is basically a 1 gal plastic jar with a funnel taking up most of the volume so you can’t fit much in the bottom.
The lures are basically guaranteed for 3-4 months, but I’ve had some last for well over 1 year. I usually use more than 1 in a trap because I’m not targeting any particular species, but instead just trying to figure out what, if anything is around. Again, the peachtree borer lures and the squash vine borer lures seem to be best for this. I’ve never gotten anything with the dogwood or raspberry crown borer lures, but I also don’t live in their range. I presume they are effective for those particular species.
The good news is the traps are cheap and kind of hard to see in the woods, and you’re only out about $25 if someone finds and steals one, unlike a light trap, which would be at least $100-200.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 28, 2022 14:48:31 GMT -8
This is the trap I was referring to: www.alphascents.com/uni-trap-single-1.htmlThe lures look like pencil erasers and go inside a little basket in the top, and it twists open in the middle. I don’t think it’s specifically made for Sesiids. I would recommend hanging them clandestinely in a forest somewhere near the known host plant of whichever species you are targeting. Despite the fact that they are rarely encountered, the host plants for most species is known. Unfortunately the larvae are little non-descript white grubs that live inside galls on the plant, so rearing them isn’t easy. One other piece of advice is when you check your trap, the Sesiids are generally both dead and dried out, and are extremely brittle. I always take a small sealed container with me lined with damp tissue and dump the catch directly into it and put a layer of tissue over the top, so it’s like a miniature relaxer. Getting some hydration in them is key to preventing the legs and antennae from breaking off as you drive down back dirt roads.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 28, 2022 10:21:13 GMT -8
There are a bunch of different lures for different species. Some are very specific and others are more general. I usually use the general ones, with the greater peachtree, lesser peachtree, and squash vine borer being the best. I get all kinds of different Sesiids in the West with those 3. They sell specific plastic green funnel traps for about $15 that you hang in a tree. I put the three lures in the top and a piece of No-Pest strip in the bottom and leave it out for days or even weeks in various habitats. Most Sesiids fly from about June to October. Check out Great Lakes IPM or AlphaScents which sell both the traps and the lures. These traps are generally sold to farmers growing fruit trees and they hang them in their orchards to monitor what’s going on.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 27, 2022 14:51:57 GMT -8
Sesiids are interesting because they are generally very common, but you hardly ever see them without a pheromone lure. They are generally day flying and most don’t come to flowers. With a lure though, you can have hundreds and hundreds of males in a trap.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 25, 2022 12:52:02 GMT -8
They are a neat butterfly, and even quite a bit different than the more common members of Agathymus which congregate at mud. Males are very territorial and stake out areas along creekbeds and generally perch on rocks and are very hard to see when resting. Usually you spook them and they take off and fly in 3-4 50 yard circles before landing again, usually in the exact same, or very close to, their original perch. Their wings make a distinctive clicking noise as they fly. They are very hard to sneak up on, and usually your net rubs off the thoractic vestiture when you do manage to net one. Most people try to find the larvae in the yucca plants and rear them, but that’s not easy either. Even though they are good-sized, they fly so fast that it’s basically just a blur going by making a clicking noise. Netting one out of the air is effectively impossible. On a good day you might see 3-4 at the peak of the season.
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evra
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Post by evra on Jan 20, 2022 17:47:01 GMT -8
Lighting during a full moon is pretty tough, especially if there is no cloud cover. I would say the difference in total numbers between a new moon and a full moon is roughly a factor of 10, maybe even 20. This can be really evident if you collect on a full moon in an area with high mountains to the east. Usually you get 1-2 hours after dark that are really productive, but as soon as the moon rises over the mountains everything just stops. I usually shut off the lights and go to sleep.
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evra
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Post by evra on Dec 13, 2021 13:08:54 GMT -8
I’ve reared hundreds of cincta from wild stock that I collected. I usually keep them outside in the winter where it gets to about 35 at night, without problems. The strange thing about R. cincta is that only about half of the cocoons emerge the next year, the other half continue to hold over. This pattern persists for up to 5 years. The interesting thing is that for the ones that hold over for more than a year usually are quite red.
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evra
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Post by evra on Dec 1, 2021 15:08:32 GMT -8
I always wear long pants, particularly jeans. In the southwest deserts almost every plant has spines or thorns. But there’s something nasty to get into almost everywhere. Poison oak in S. CA, wild rose, blackberry and Ceanothus in the Rocky Mtns., cacti in all of the desert southwest, and all kinds of stuff in the east. I could never see myself in shorts on a serious collecting trip.
Acacia greggii is my vote for the worst. Getting your net or clothing tangled up in it is truly a nightmare. Trying to get out of a patch of it usually gets you in deeper and you always end up bleeding in multiple places after you finally succeed.
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