Light Traps and Mantis Collecting

[guapoalto049]

I'm thinking about setting up a light 'trap' to find some mantids. I have read conflicting stories about what works best, so hopefully people can share what he/she has tried and what drew the most mantids and insects.

Are black lights shining on a white sheet the best? Are there battery powered options?

 

[jrh3]

i use a 5.0 uvb bulb behind a white bed sheet. the uvb is a blue is color and i found it works best. i use the 4ft. length.

 

[Peter Clausen]

You won't get females to the sheets and even nymphs are unlikely to move in very often. Adult males fly in in limited numbers during breeding season (when they have wings). You are much better off in simply driving around small or rural towns in areas where mantises occur and checking the area around the lights where the mantises will sometimes remain for days or weeks because the location serves up good bugs.

I find rest stops to be great locations to find mantises and other bugs, but it is evidence against the method of "light-collecting" that in a desert full of bugs, you're lucky if you find even 5 mantises at these lights. In farming communities you can often find both males and females at bright lights (white lights, not yellow/orange sodium vapor lights that they are using more and more these days, partly because they are less attractive to bugs). Like most things, it comes down to location, location, location!

I'm actually blacklighting with a 5.0 UVB (18 incher) in my backyard right now, as I do most nights above 50 degrees, but when I really get serious I bust out my 48 inch 350BL bulbs too, and a mercury vapor bulb.

 

[ScienceGirl]

I've never heard of catching/attracting mantids this way before... You guys are introducing me to all kinds of stuff! (ootheca candling, sheet traps, etc.)

Let me know how these work for you!

 

[Dracus]

I've never tried blacklighting, but used ordinary mercury vapor lamp and warm spectrum bulbs with a white screen. In my limited practice most species, which can be attracted at all (males and females with developed wings) fly well to MV lamp, but some prefer only warm spectrum.

 

[Paradoxica]

Sorry if this is a bit fftopic: but I always wondered, why are insects attracted to lights? Maybe a mantis instinctively knows other bugs will be there, but what about all the other bugs? Is there some evolutionary benefit to swarming around lights, or is it just some random response that our artificial lighting has triggered?

I can't help but imagine a bunch of flying insects trying to fly to the moon in the days before artificial light :stuart:

 

[Crazy4mantis]

Sorry if this is a bit fftopic: but I always wondered, why are insects attracted to lights? Maybe a mantis instinctively knows other bugs will be there, but what about all the other bugs? Is there some evolutionary benefit to swarming around lights, or is it just some random response that our artificial lighting has triggered?

I can't help but imagine a bunch of flying insects trying to fly to the moon in the days before artificial light :stuart:

actually I think it really has something to do with the moon. They may navigate using the moon, so they go to light. Nobody knows for sure. I read it somewhere.