Building a Better Moth Trap

I’m about to embark on my second moth trap attempt. I built one out of a 5 gallon bucket, a funnel, some egg cartons, and a powerful LED light. This really hasn’t been a good collector for me, either that or there just aren’t many moths around. I mostly seem to collect scarabs and adorable wasps.

Not Moths

The beetle on the left is some kind of Shining Leaf Chafer, Tribe Anomalini. This is a type of scarab beetle. I’m no beetle expert, so I don’t know the exact species. And the adorable, albeit funny looking wasp on the right is an Ichneumonidae. I also don’t know the exact species, but I see them almost every night that I leave out my moth trap.

Don’t get me wrong, beetles and wasps are nice, but I’ve got moths on the brain.

So I am going to try building a box trap. It’s called a Skinner trap, and I found a British site that has some basic plans. Two days ago I bought some plywood, and I’ll get started on it today. I don’t have a Mercury Vapour bulb, and I’m not sure that I’ll get one.

These plans are courtesy of http://www.atropos.info, a British mothing site.