Billions of Bodies --

DR. JAMES ADAMS JADAMS at em.daltonstate.edu
Tue Nov 7 09:45:56 EST 2000


Listers,

	The number of insects killed by a variety of methods is clearly 
astronomically huge.  I remember some projected number (in 
100s/1000s of *pounds*) killed nightly by some of the large bat 
colonies in the south and southwest.  Someone surely can post 
the details.

	On a lesser scale, and at the risk of enraging some of the bug-
huggers, I have done some light trap sampling for the U.S. forest 
service in the past.  One lone light trap can have several thousand 
moths (including the micros) in it.  However, when you realized that 
this is *one* trap with a *dim* fluorescent black light bulb in it, and 
you realized just how much habitat is out there, the number of 
moths that must be out there (extrapolating from one light trap 
sample, or from the number of bats that can be supported by a 
resident insect, mostly moth, population) is in the ridiculous range. 
I'd guess the total number of moth individuals of all species in the 
state of Georgia, for instance, would probably be a number  as long 
as one of the lines of text in this message.  

	Please to not mistake this as support for bug zappers.  I've 
have felt all along that bug zappers are one of the stupidest 
inventions ever built.  Not only do they *not* really kill the target 
insects, but they may *attract* more of the target insects into the 
area, which means the owners may be bitten even more than they 
would have been if they didn't have a bug zapper.  But, the fact that 
moth, and so many other insect, populations continue to thrive in 
the face of development, cars, bug zappers, etc., points to the 
resiliency of most insects.  There clearly must be a limit, however.

	James
	

Dr. James K. Adams
Dept. of Natural Science and Math
Dalton State College
213 N. College Drive
Dalton, GA  30720
Phone: (706)272-4427; fax: (706)272-2533
U of Michigan's President James Angell's 
  Secret of Success: "Grow antennae, not horns"

 
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