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Over-reliance on light traps can be counter-productive at best and potentially dangerous at worst, say Emily McDermott, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Bradley Mullens, Ph.D., professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside. Old Reliable, however, can have a troublesome flip side. Insects most often sampled for purposes of human and animal health include disease vectors such as mosquitoes, biting midges, and sand flies. ”įor more than a century, light traps, in recent times supplemented by suction or odor baits, have been the device of choice for collecting insects active by twilight and night.
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So suggests a paper published today in the Journal of Medical Entomology, catchily titled “ The Dark Side of Light Traps. The Old Reliable for generations of entomologists, the light trap remains perhaps the best catchall collecting device to sample large numbers and species of insects, but it also may mask infestations of some insect-borne illnesses and even expose humans to disease vectors. But a growing body of research details the limitations of light traps and how they can sometimes fail to accurately represent populations of disease-carrying insects in a nearby area. The CDC light trap, like versions before it, has been widely used for decades by entomologists to sample insect populations.