Week 2 and 3: Collecting traps

Sorting the insects collected and
looking for the mosquitoes!

 The past two weeks have been very eventful for finding and collecting mosquitoes. The mosquito trap locations that I cover are part of the Mid, Lower, and Outer regions of Cape Cod. For the people not from Cape Cod, or who have not spent considerable time here, these regions span from Barnstable to Provincetown. I am on the road every day in a green pickup truck going around Cape Cod setting up mosquito traps (gravid and light traps) and then the next day going back to collect the captured mosquitoes. Once I've collected the mosquitoes (and other flying insects) I return to the lab to freeze the samples in the deep freezer. After about an hour the sample is ready to be sorted and the mosquitoes are waiting to be identified. 

P.s. the contents of this trap had a lot of other insects besides mosquitoes like moths, beetles, and nats. 

David

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