Report - Bugging March 30
An awesome trip, folks! Six of us were out in Green Swamp between 7pm to midnight. Weather was beautiful, with perfectly clear skies, a light breeze, and temperatures dropping from a high of 28 to a low of 14 celsius. We ran our 250 Watt metal halide light and two 4-ft fluorescent blacklight bulbs.
For once, the beetles were the clear stars of the night. We saw both species of caterpillar hunters (Calosoma spp.) that occur here, both false and true bombardiers, several large diving beetles, and our first blister beetle for this site. We even had a few fireflies throughout the evening, my first in Florida!
Not so many moths flying yet, probably because it was early in the season, but we got a fair number of interesting noctuids and a few sphinx moths as well.
On the herping front, we spotted an Eastern spadefoot toad, and an Eastern fence lizard, both before it got dark. We also had sigtings of an opossum and something loud in the bushes that was probably an armadillo.
We'll be putting out a new trip schedule soon, including a seining trip and another bug night, so watch your emails for these announcements!
~David Durieux
