Rachel Hewey, Week 8

 

This week we set out traps on Monday like usual, but we also started trapping at a new site and added more resting boxes to each site. Our goal with these improvements is to catch more of the target species and to send them into the lab for testing. On Tuesday, we vacuumed out all the resting boxes and took the light trap container back to our lab to sort. We sorted through all the traps on Tuesday and finished up the pools on Wednesday. We also made more resting boxes after we finished sorting. We did not work on Thursday or Friday because it was the 4th of July and the lab was closed so we had to drive the samples down the day before.

We found two new species in our traps this week that we had never seen before. Because of this, I now know how to easily identify these two species. The first species has very distinct blue scales on the side of its scutum when put under a light and is very small. The other species is large and has purple looking scales on its abdomen when put under a light. I did not learn much else this week since it was cut short. I am hoping in the next two weeks that I can absorb as much knowledge as possible since I will be done afterwards.


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