Malaise traps?

[Cabintom]

I'm curious if anyone here has had experience collecting Leps using malaise traps?
How practical are they? Ease of use? Portability? Do they work without a killing chamber? Would ants be a problem in the tropics?

Article I just read, in which different designs were tested: https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 24-00645-5

[Jshuey]

i ran one for a summer. It was an alcohol kill system, so the few leps that were captured were pretty much destroyed. If you just wanted to count bugs - it was fine. But nothing could be mounted.
John

[Chuck]

When I was in Ecuador some ornithologists were running both mist nets and large (almost walk in size) and long malaise traps. The malaise didn’t catch many Leps, but those they did catch were the almost-impossible-to-catch species. These would often be found resting on the sides of the trap funnel, not in the kill area. The first Lep person to meet them scored some very rare specimens.

[Chuck]

ETA on the trap in Ecuador: material was green. IIRC the ornithologists put up mist nets because they are the bird-equivalent of our butterfly nets; the malaise trap was a "let's just try it" - they didn't know what to expect, and it didn't catch many birds. I don't remember it even having a kill trap, so I think it did not, it just funneled butterflies into a larger rear section. It had to be 6+ meters long.

[Jshuey]

I should adds something here. My Malaise trapping days ended when we caught a deer in the autumn. Apparently a buck with a full rack of antlers. The trap was ripped to shreds - an expensive lesson for me.

John

[Chuck]

I should adds something here. My Malaise trapping days ended when we caught a deer in the autumn. Apparently a buck with a full rack of antlers. The trap was ripped to shreds - an expensive lesson for me.

John

While a truly unique anecdote, my experience with traps is that the greatest threat is humans. If not wontonly destructive, or stealing for some reason, they want to lookee what's in there and cause havoc. For that reason, traps- which are intended to operate without supervision- need to be visited frequently.

I do think there's merit to use Malaise traps for butterflies, particularly for ground-level species; put the opening upwind. But I'd be inclined to visit daily and have no kill element.

I know mist nets need a permit in USA, do Malaise traps?