Hello ,

Looking for insects always seems simple, easy and straight forward but, there is way more to it than meets the eye! Before I begin to search, I often find some information on a species, like where they occur, what food they prefer and where they forage for food. This information should theoretically be very helpful, but sometimes it is more frustrating than anything else, let me explain.

Many insect species are known to eat certain plant species and that they sleep on other species. A very good example of this and one that I am yet to collect, is the Goliath Beetle (Goliathus albosignatus) here in South Africa. I know that they eat figs, fruits, nectar and sap of acacias, and during the night they will roost on Marula trees (Sclerocarya birrea caffra) during the night. Even with all this information I am still to collect a specimen, and the closest I have been is seeing one fly past!

Community sampling becomes even more difficult. A typical community sampling would be used to determine the species richness (how many species are present) as well as species abundance (how many of each species is present) in an area. If we use ants as an example we can very quickly see the trouble you run into. If you use pitfall traps you will only collect ground dwelling species that will run and fall into the pitfall traps, but you will not collect any of the slow moving careful ant species or any species that doesn't live on the soil. This means that you will have to collect ants from leaf litter, the tree or grass canopy, and from beneath the ground, otherwise you will miss a lot of the species that occur in the area.

Planning what you want to collect, how to collect it and when to collect is not always easy, but the challenge it provided is exciting and always worth it!

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