Bottle trap - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Bottle trap is a name used for several different objects. Among these are a piece of material used in bathroom plumbing, as well as various traps that are made out of discarded bottles and which are used to trap animals as different as beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

s, mice

Mouse

A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...

, fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

and octopus

Octopus

The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...

es. This article is about the use of modified bottles to trap flying insects.

In this context, a bottle trap is a type of baited

Bait (luring substance)

Bait is any substance used to attract prey, e.g. in a mousetrap.-In Australia:Baiting in Australia refers to specific campaigns to control foxes, wild dogs and dingos by poisoning in areas where they are a problem...

arboreal (placed in a tree) insect trap

Insect trap

Insect traps are used to monitor or directly reduce insect populations. They typically use food, visual lures, chemical attractants and pheromones as bait and are installed so that they do not injure other animals or humans or result in residues in foods or feeds. Visual lures use light, bright...

widely used for collecting either prized or harmful fruit-eating beetles, especially flower beetles., leaf chafers and longhorn beetle
Longhorn beetle
The longhorn beetles are a cosmopolitan family of beetles, typically characterized by extremely long antennae, which are often as long as or longer than the beetle's body...

s as well as wasp

Wasp

The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...

s and other unwanted flying insects.

Structure

A bottle trap is an insect trap made out of a plastic bottle. Most collectors use bottles of 1.5 or 2 liters to make these traps but smaller bottles are sometimes used as well. There are basically two types:

Funnel type. These bottle traps are made by cutting off the neck of the bottle as well as the complete tapering part of the top. The neck and cap are discarded. For catching wasps only the cap is removed, while leaving the neck in place. The tapering part is placed upside down on top of the rest of the bottle, thereby effectively forming a funnel. This funnel is then fixed to the bottle by piercing both bottle and funnel at two opposing sides. A wire fitted through these holes ensures the funnel solidly fits on the bottle, while the trap can easily be opened when required. After putting the bait in the bottle the trap is placed at the desired location.
- Advantages:
  - Insect
    Insect
    Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
    
    s can't escape from this type of trap, since they fly up along the side of the bottle, not finding the exit, which is in the middle.
  - Bat
    Bat
    Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
    
    s and large moth
    Moth
    A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
    
    s can't enter the trap, since they are too large to fit through the funnel.
  - This type can, unlike the other kind, also be used to collect troublesome wasps
- Disadvantages:
  - Not only insects but also rain will funnel into the trap. This trap is therefore normally only used in dry seasons.
  - This construction requires a bit more work than the side door type.

Side-door type. A side-door bottle trap consists of a bottle with cap of which the higher end of one upright side is cut open. A simple rectangular shape is cut out, taking care that it stays attached to the bottle on its upside. This plastic flap is then bend upward, effectively forming a rain shield over the entrance. After adding some bait the trap is put in its place.
- Advantages:
  - Because of its opening with rain shield very little rain enters the trap, making it effective in wet seasons too.
  - Construction is very simple and requires no additional materials.
- Disadvantages:
  - The wider opening allows for small bats and large moths to enter. These may die in the trap and pollute it, as well as forming, with their wings, a bridge to the exit.
  - Captured beetles may escape again since they may simply fly upward along the side of the bottle.

Bait

Many different types of bait are used. Since this kind of trap is mainly used for beetles that are attracted to (over)ripe fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

s, baits with a certain amount of alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

are usually very effective. Types of bait which are commonly used are:

For beetles:
- Banana with or without beer or rum (and sometimes with added sugar).
- A mixture of red wine, vinegar and sugar.
For wasps (funnel type bottle trap only):
- Syrup, soft drink or sugar water.

Other fruits are sometimes used as well, but banana is most often used since it is widely available, normally inexpensive and contains suffient sugar to start a fermentation

Fermentation (food)

Fermentation in food processing typically is the conversion of carbohydrates to alcohols and carbon dioxide or organic acids using yeasts, bacteria, or a combination thereof, under anaerobic conditions. Fermentation in simple terms is the chemical conversion of sugars into ethanol...

process by itself. The different ingredients are usually kept apart and mixed in the trap itself, but some collectors prefer to mix their bait before going into the field.

Placement

Bottle traps (like all traps) yield best in places where more of the desired insects are to be expected. For beetles, in general this means high up in trees, especially flowering or fruiting trees. Other places in which traps are often placed with good results include forest borders. Traps placed inside forests usually yield smaller numbers of beetles, but also different species. Traps for luring wasps are usually set up a short distance (several meters) from the place where they are bothersome.

There are various methods used for placing bottle traps:

After a hole is made in the top of the trap, a branch is bent down and its top fitted through the hole.
A thin cord is attached to the trap, after which the cord is thrown over a high branch and the trap pulled up, the rope then being fixed to some lower branch.
After a wire hook is fixed to it, the trap is either manually or with the aid of a long stick hung over a branch.
The trap is placed on the ground.

The first three methods are used most often for collecting beetles, while the latter two are more commonly in use for catching wasps.

Bycatch

Next to the desired beetles, many other insects may find the bait attractive. Sap beetle

Sap beetle

The sap beetles are a family of beetles.They are small ovoid, usually dull-coloured beetles, with knobbed antennae. Some have red or yellow spots or bands. They feed mainly on decaying vegetable matter, over-ripe fruit, and sap...

s (a group of small fruit-eating beetles), moths like the large white witch moth, various butterflies

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

, cockroach

Cockroach

Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...

es, flies

Fly

True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...

, stingless bee

Stingless bee

Stingless bees, sometimes called stingless honey bees or simply meliponines, are a large group of bees, comprising the tribe Meliponini . They belong in the family Apidae, and are closely related to common honey bees, carpenter bees, orchid bees and bumblebees...

s, wasps and even small fruit eating bats may enter the bottle traps as bycatch

Bycatch

The term “bycatch” is usually used for fish caught unintentionally in a fishery while intending to catch other fish. It may however also indicate untargeted catch in other forms of animal harvesting or collecting...

while the collector aims for beetles. Such unwanted animals in the trap may cause the collector several problems:

These unwanted insects pollute the trap. Because they cannot escape the trap, they will, like the beetles, eventually die in it. Fragile insects such as moths and butterflies will live only for a short time in these traps, and after they die their bodies will quickly start rotting, and their intestines as well as the scale
Scale (Lepidoptera)
The presence of scales on the wings of Lepidoptera, comprising moths and butterflies, characterises this order of insects. The name is derived from Ancient Greek λεπίδος and πτερόν . The wings of Lepidoptera are minutely scaled, which feature gives the name to this order...

s on their wings will pollute the bait. Although this will not necessarily alter the attractiveness of the bait to other insects, the remains of the unwanted specimen will make it more difficult for the collector to check the bait for desired beetles. Unwanted animals which are still alive usually need some time to get over the effects of alcohol, after which they will fly away.
They may create an escape route for trapped beetles. Especially the very long wings of the neotropical white witch moth may form an effective bridge from the bait to the opening of the trap.
Protected species such as bats may enter the trap and not be able to leave it again. When they are still alive, bats are often able to fly away directly after being flushed with clean water.

Structure

Bait

Placement

Bycatch

See also