Saturniidae Expedition to
North-Vietnam
by Teemu Klemetti, Otso Reunanen, Tero Taipale and Sami Haapala
This is a report about the expedition to North-Vietnam in October 2006.
The main purpose of the trip was to find two Saturnids:
Salassa lemaii and Actias chapae. Both species fly in
one generation per year in October-November.
Expedition group
The expedition group consisted of four members
from Finland:
Teemu Klemetti (email)
Otso Reunanen
Tero Taipale
Arrangements and collecting in Tam Dao National Park
We arrived to Noi Bai International Airport in
Hanoi in the morning, October 24th. The first objective was to find
suitable generators for collecting. After visiting a few shops in
Hanoi, we found good and reasonably priced machines. We bought two
Thailand made Hondas, both giving 2.2kW continuous power. They are
powerful enough for collecting.
Buying the generators
After purchasing the generators and gas, we drove
straight to Tam Dao National Park, and we met
the local Ranger there on the same afternoon. The ranger allowed us
to collect inside the park. We lived in the hotel at the end of
the village. The hotel itself was located in a reasonable collecting
spot so the first night we plugged the
lights into the hotel outlets, and did not use the generators.
Meeting with the ranger.
The hotel was in a reasonable collecting place.
For the next five nights we collected with generators along
the newly built road from the village towards the three peaks of
Tam Dao. There were many good collecting spots just along the road.
Every evening the generators were moved to the collecting spots by the
local motorbikes and every morning they took the generators back to
the hotel.
The new road from Tam Dao village towards the peaks.
The generator and lamps arrived to the collecting spot.
In each collecting spot we used one 500
watt self-ballasted mercury light and two 300 watts solar spotlights.
The 500 watt light was always on the white cloth and the spotlights
were on the top of the long bamboo rod. The purpose of the spotlights
is to attract the moths from long distance and the 500 watt bulb
attracts the moths to the cloth. This system has worked very well
everywhere in the tropics. The
spotlights play an especially important role. We can recommend them
to all collectors. One brand is Osram ultravitalux, but other
manufacturers have similar lights as
well. They are expensive but absolutely worth of every single cent.
Two spotlights in the bamboo rod shining down the slope.
During the six nights we collected in Tam Dao,
we attracted a few males of Salassa lemaii each night. All
males came to the light between 11.00pm and 01:00am. Unfortunately we
did not find any females for breeding.
Maybe the females would be more abundant later on near the end of
October and early November.
Goto Success!
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