This week I returned to John Bowne High School to set the second round of insect traps. Here is an updated picture of the farm site:
Like last time, one of the pitfall traps was placed in the soil and another in the black plastic within a row of tomatoes:
I set the traps on Wednesday, and then on Thursday there was a thunderstorm, and on Friday when I went to collect the traps I noticed that one of the pan traps had blown over in the storm and there were no insects remaining:
I learned that this is something that happens during field work, as the weather provides unpredictable conditions and outcomes. The rest of the traps worked as expected though, and I was able to still collect and identify a lot of insects. One difficulty I had with this week’s insect ID was the leafhoppers l found looked very similar to bees and wasps. Here are some pictures of the leafhoppers I found that look similar to bees:
In comparison, here is a honeybee I found:
Some of the differences I use to distinguish them are the bees have longer antennas and shorter legs, and leafhoppers have bristles on the rear legs.