It was a dark night of solid cloud cover that hid the moon and every star. A perfect night for a light trap. I rode in the jeep thrilled with adventure. Visibility was low, the road rough, and the vehicle dipped and splashed through through washes that flood this time of year occasionally leaving Portal Road impassible. Small critters darting across the road made me wonder about all the wildlife invisible to me in the vast darkness. Road conditions made for a long four miles.
Finally we spotted two light traps from the road that were set up by other lepidopterists of our project. Lepidopterists are scientists who study the lives of moths and and butterflies. Traps were set to collect adults of the species being studied. Some females are collected in hope that they will lay eggs and the entire natural histories of undocumented species can be photographed and studied. This is the work of Dr. David Wagner, author of Caterpillars of Eastern North America : a guide to identification and natural history / David L. Wagner. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2005, and professor of Entimology in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/people/dwagner//. Dr. Wagner, also know as Wags, is beginning to work on a Princeton guide of the western U.S.. Some of our field work will be featured in his book!
I'm studying species on the sheet. The light is mounted on a tripod and hooked up to a generator. The mercury vapor light shines brightly on a hung sheet to attract insects from a distance.
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