Emergence trap for the collection of exuviae and adult of Odonata

Abstract

Odonates have aquatic larval stages and terrestrial adults. The extreme change in habitat occupation during their life cycle means that combined collection methods, capable of providing data for both larvae and adults, are scarce and are often inefficient. Given this, we applied a method for the collection of specimens of both life phases using emergence traps. During fieldwork, 78 emergence events were recorded for 15 species. We also briefly discuss the emergence pattern of the recorded species. We believe the information obtained here provide an important contribution to the understanding of the ecology and basic biology of Neotropical odonate species, as well as helping to solve the taxonomic problems associated with the identification of larvae.