Bait Recipe's for Lepidoptera

[beetlehorn]

After reviewing some of the threads in this forum, I have concluded that there are some of you collectors out there that are interested in baiting, but are yet unclear of what to use. So I thought it would be interesting to see what kinds of bait other collectors use. I am sure everyone has their own "special recipe"! My favorite concoction for Lepidoptera would be the fermented fruit slop I came up with in conjunction with Bill Garthe's recipe for Catocala's. I use overripe bananas, peaches, and/or apples. I cut up the fruit into pieces, and place them in a plastic storage container for several days, sometimes two weeks depending on the temperature. Warmer temps speed up the fermentation process, so less time is required. After the fruit ferments I add two pounds of dark brown sugar, and two bottles (24oz.) of dark beer to every three gallons of slop. I close the container and let it sit for a few hours, usually just before I go sugaring. When I open the container the odor is somewhat overwhelming, I think the beer is what really gives it a boost. On a good day or night, leps will come right in even before I start applying the bait. This stuff draws in many noctuids, and also sphingids. During the day, I get lots of Nymphalidae, and Satyridae, sometimes even Lycaenidae. I apply the bait with an old paintbrush to treetrunks, old posts, and on old lumber boards. I also use this stuff in my bait traps. You can use your imagination to come up with new ideas as you get into sugaring. It would be interesting to see what other collectors use as bait, and how they use them. So feel free to add your comments and suggestions. Tom

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[simosg]

Dec 31, 2011 8:59:45 GMT -8 beetlehorn said:

After the fruit ferments ...

How do you see when it is the right time?

Hannes

[beetlehorn]

To answer your question, all I can say is....smell it. The smell of fermented fruit is distinctive, it has somewhat of an alcoholic odor, sort of like aged wine. Also you can tell whenever you place it outside and it attracts other insects, well then it should be ready. Collecting insects with bait is just like all other aspects of this hobby/activity, experience is the best teacher. I have aged bait for two months, and let me tell you, it is really potent then!! Give it a try, you might be surprized. Tom

[simosg]

Thank you for your recipe Tom!

Hannes

[Adam Cotton]

I wish there was a bait to put in a trap (rather than on mud) to attract Papilionidae, especially females. They're just not interested in fermented fruit, and don't normally mud-puddle either. I have very occasionally caught the odd (usually freshly emerged or extremely old) female on mud, but never at urine bait.

Adam.

[prillbug2]

For Cerambycidae and other beetles, I use a concentrated syrup composed of water and brown sugar, in an old 2 gallon plastic ice cream container with a 2"X2" square section cut out of the top. This also pulls in moths and some butterflies, even an occasional Tiger Swallowtail.
I have also considered using rice syrup, but find that it's kind of expensive. Evenutally, the syrup becomes so fermented from insects dropping into it that I even find carrion beetles and an occasional dung beetle, as well as Staphylinidea.
I also use Lundgren funnels, and bait the trap with turpentine, then hang it in the trees.
I posted things like this in the old forum. To clean them, I use warm water and soak them for a few hours to dissolve the syrup.
Jeff Prill.
Also, you can also use ethylene in Lundgren traps.

[Deleted]

Funny I should read this after just having smelled my basement. I currently am making 37 gallons of slop It is VERY fermented and sure to be prime come this next season.

Generally, I use apples, bananas, white and brown sugar and molasses with the last ingredient being dried packets of baker's yeast one buys cheaply at the grocery store. Putting a packet of that mixed into a 5 gallon bucket of fruit and sugar makes for a wildly great smelling slop. After a few weeks, the smell is overshelming:) I bought a Ninja blender(it has six blades all up the shaft) and blend up the apples and bananas into a shake-like concsistentcy, then mix in the sugars. Lastly, I mix the yeast into the mixture and wait.... ;D

Other fruits used sporadically are peaches, pears, strawberries, and plums. I usually go with what is free from my grocer friends who save me LOTS of over ripe fruit no longer able to be sold. This fall, I offered to pick up the rotten fallen fruit in a friend's apple orchard. My wife was in shock when she saw my haul of wheelbarrels full of yucky apples

I do have to say that I prefer my own slop to ferment on its own and I do not add alcohol/beer. I can guarrantee my fermented slop needs no alcohol boost. I read somewhere that putting in alcohol can actually hurt the natural process starting up. As I see it, using beer/alcohol to a fruit mixture would be for a quick- mix of sorts where time to ferment is not possible.

This last summer, I had a TERRIFIC time sugaring the Catocalas and had amazing results. One night I caught 15 species of Cats with numbers that were astounding. The state park I visit probalbly smelled like a meade convention the next day

btw---I did try the European wine/rope method, but it just did not do very well.

Have a Happy New Year you all.

[jshuey]

I collect mostly in Latin America, usually I have about 2 weeks in the field once I clear the airport. Here is the bait recipe I use that gets me working within 2 days. Sorry for the “English” units here – it’s how we cook in the states!

In a one gallon container screw-top container
1). I slice (skin on) about 0.5 gallons of ripe (like you would eat) bananas and 0.5 gallons of very ripe (black skins) plantains (cooking bananas – skin on again). This gives you a mix of fruit that turns to mush (bananas) with chunks that hold up for several days (the plantains)
2) I add about 2 cups of local, unrefined sugar (not the white refined stuff). I bring a pack of fresh bakers yeast with me, and sprinkle it over the entire mess
3) add enough water to cover everything,
4) – screw the lid on the container and shake to mix it all up
5) Loosen the lid and about 24 hours later you can start using it
I add more water, sugar and more fruit as needed to keep the mix going, and I tend to pitch the stuff that decays as I use it in the traps after a few days. The key is to keep that alcohol smell brewing both in the bait as you make it, and in the traps when you leave them out

I mostly use traps, but we also smear this crap on tree trunks. Some bugs just won’t go into to the traps, but will come to the bait on trees (like Agrias aedon rodriguezi which flies around the trap when you first set it, but then settles into a tree and just sits for hours… and hours…. and hours)

This bait works well in Central America and southern Brasil, but I’ve been told that fruit does not work well in the Amazon Basin or the Andes (where rotting fish seems to be the preferred bait).

The photo is from Belize - and is an example of smearing the stuff on a tree.

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[jshuey]

here's the results of a day trapping in Brasil

FYI - these are a modified version of the new colapsible BioQuip traps which I ant proofed (kind of!) and made the funnel opening larger

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[redpacu]

Here's my version of the same collapsible Bioquip trap with the skirt used to close the bottom of the trap and the three hangers support a platform and the bait container. I'm at 500 m altitude on the edge of the eastern Andes in Colombia. I trap every day using fermented banana and brown sugar mix. Rotten fish and shrimp are powerful but only trap males, the fruit bait attracts females also.

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[thanos]

Yes,but the females (even the males) of some species seems that totally ignore such traps. Exactly the same type of trap with rotten fruits has been tried here by a collector whom I know,for catching females of Limenitis populi. The trap was attached on a tree,inside the habitat of this species,at a place where quite many males had been net-collected. It was put within the short flight period of the species for some days. The weather good. The result was 0 females, and I think very few males. Other commoner species were collected in both sexes in the trap.
I've not used myself a trap like this yet, but,after a lot of searching in this forest where L.populi flies,I finally spotted recently the very best breeding place for the females(a relatively very small part of the forest path -compared to the huge size of this forest- with Populus tremula at a stream), and went there at the very best flight period for the females(only a few days). The result ? I was really surprised and had an unforgetably marvellous experience : caught with my net about 15-20 females,which were flying around me,during a couple of hours.. !

[redpacu]

True the traps don't attract everything but in the tropics where most species of fruit feeders don't fly in numbers or are up in the canopy or fly so fast you can't catch them, they are a great help. Over this past year I've caught hundreds of Charaxinae in my three traps but probably only two or three with a net. You don't even see them except in the traps. Your Limenitis are probably not avid rotten fruit feeders. I get very, very few Adelpha in the traps even though there are many species here, they are just not interested. Sometimes it's the fruit, see leptrap's messages on Asterocampa or visit this link
www.leptraps.com/baittrapping.htm

[africaone]

In Africa where these traps are used for 50 years, this is the same. many Charaxinae not visible are attracted to the traps (espacially females if provided with banana and sugar). This is a quasi exclusive way to obtain females Charaxinae (the other being breedings, sape flow fermented from tree trunk and flying females espacaillay when laying eggs !).
Also many satyrinae and during the night some (sometimes many) Noctuidae. Depending of the place, some other Nymphalidae are attracted in the traps such as Euptera/ Pseudathyma / Cymothoe /sallya / Catacroptera / Hamanumida / etc...
.... and Cetoniidae, very few Cerambycidae and many flies and hymenoptera.

[irisscientist]

I must admit that this particular thread is becoming extremely interesting indeed from my own selfish perspective, as it almost combines the interests of this direct tread, with those of Beetlehorns “American Emperors, Asterocampa” thread. The combination of these two threads, effectively covering a considerable amount of my current research studies.

Although on a parallel to my own studies, the available literature would suggest that although certain generic baits can, and are often used to attract many different butterflies, the bait needed to attract a specific genera, or species of butterfly is often extremely precise. There are many papers (too many to quote here) which cover this subject matter, but the summary of many has demonstrated that some of the main attractants (in no particular order) include:

Sugars, with certain butterflies preferentially choosing different sugars. (Sucrose, Glucose, Fructose, Maltose ect).
Salts (refer to most mud-puddling literature) .
Proteins/Amino acids (especially certain members of the Nymphalidaae).
Acidic/alkaline compounds (such as acetic acid, or nitrogen sources-also see proteins)
Secondary (pharmacophagously acquired) metabolites, such as the Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids (PA’s) which are acquired by many Ithomiine butterflies.

For me, the experiments conducted by Beck et al (1999) are of particular interest. The paper abstract of which can be found here:

www.springerlink.com/content/5vk43ak203ck8f58/

Omura’s (2000) paper I thought was also extremely good. The paper abstract of which can again be found here:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-3032.2000.00193.x/full

All in all, the specific baits required to attract any butterfly must appear to be tailored to the species you are attempting to attract, with some species being much easier to attract than others.

All of this speculation could however of course be ‘simply’ confirmed via EAG (ElectroAntennoGram) response analysis!

It is most interesting for me to read that the notes made by redpacu in this thread (regarding male specific attraction to rotten fish and shrimp) which certainly help to support some of my current thinking with regards to Apaturinae. Lets just hope that the GC-MS data (now due mid-late January) are of good enough quality to provide some conclusive evidence! If not, it will be another year before I can collect and process any further samples!


Mark

[irisscientist]

Many apologies, the Omura (2000) paper abstract can actually be found here:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-3032.2000.00193.x/abstract


Mark