We use several types of traps like yellow buckets traps, malaise, and light traps to collect the insects inside the families we’re studying. The collected insects are analyzed, classified, and processed in our Open Lab to send them with their specific specialist to finally know if we have or not a new species.
After the first process inside the lodge, we send the samples to the Natural History Museum in Lima. There, the tiger’s moth specialist Juan Grados classified the specimen within physical feathers, genitalia analysis, and genetic tools. He sends the specimens, apart from Tiger Moths, to their specialists around America.
To get Genetic support we’re using a technique known as Barcoding, for this, we’re working with Guelph University located in Ontario Canada because they’re running a massive international project called Bold that means “Barcode of Life Database”.
To increase our collection we work hand in hand with guests that chose the “Discover New Species” activity at the lodge. Guests join the biologist team after dinner and walk to a light trap set up in the middle of the jungle. There, they learn about entomology, how to identify the groups that we’re studying, and create awareness of the relationship between insects and the whole tropical ecosystem. If that night, a guest collects a New Species they have the great opportunity to name it!! Could you imagine visiting the Peruvian Amazon Jungle and returning to your home with a New Species named by yourself? You can make this happen with Wired Amazon.
Why is important to become a citizen scientist?
Insects are the base of all ecosystems considered as “all those small things that support the world” (E.O Wilson). They accomplish key roles as pollination, supporting up to 80% of the production of fruits and vegetables, nutrient recycling, and decomposers of organic trash. Also, controlling pests of important human crops, are the base of any known ecosystem within thousands of functions.
Only in the United States do insects generate 57 thousand million dollars without counting pollination. Around the world, there are more than 2 million people that feed directly on insects.
Since February 2016 more than 1,500 people had participated in the program discovering 9 new species of tiger moths and 2 Scorpion wasps helping us, at Wired Amazon, make science happen. Join Us.
by Juan Diego