Heteroptera Attracted to Butterfly Traps Baited with Fish or Shrimp Carrion

Records of Heteroptera collected at butterfly traps baited with fish or shrimp carrion during collecting trips to Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are presented. Traps consisted of a cylinder of net fabric (about 35 cm diameter × 75 cm length) attached on the top and bottom to square pieces of wood slightly larger than the diameter of the cylinder. The bait usually consisted of locally available fish or shrimp that were cut into small pieces and placed in a container with water and a little soil and allowed to putrefy for several days to a week or more before use. The Heteroptera collected consisted of 91 species and 1,712 specimens in the following families: Alydidae, Coreidae, Cyrtocoridae, Lygaeidae, Miridae, Pentatomidae, Reduviidae, Rhopalidae, Rhyparochromidae, and Scutelleridae. We collected 1,356 males and 356 females at these traps, but most of the sex bias occurred in the Scutelleridae. Although sex bias was variable by family, a bias towards females generally occurred except for the Scutelleridae. Most of the species collected at these traps were not collected at the location using other collecting methods, so collecting at butterfly traps increased the number of taxa obtained at each location. Butterfly traps baited with fish or shrimp carrion should be considered as an additional collecting tool for biodiversity studies or general collecting.