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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Low-Cost Automated Flight Intercept Trap for the Temporal Sub-Sampling of Flying Insects Attracted to Artificial Light at Night

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Quantifying the movement of multiple insects using an optical insect counter.

Wesley C Hoffmann¹, Philip C Jank, Jerome A Klun

¹USDA-ARS-Areawide Pest Management Research Unit, 2771 F&B Road, College Station, TX 77845, USA.

Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association

|July 24, 2010

Summary

A new optical insect counter (OIC) system accurately tracks flying insects in a flight tunnel. This technology precisely records insect counts, positions, and timing, aiding behavioral studies.

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Area of Science:

Entomology
Instrumentation
Behavioral Ecology

Background:

Accurate monitoring of flying insect populations is crucial for ecological and pest management studies.
Existing methods for insect counting can be labor-intensive or lack spatial and temporal precision.

Purpose of the Study:

To design and validate a novel optical insect counter (OIC) for automated, high-resolution monitoring of flying insects.
To assess the OIC's capability in discriminating insect positions and recording passage times.
To evaluate the OIC's utility in insect behavior experiments, specifically mosquito responses to attractants and repellents.

Main Methods:

Development of an OIC system integrating a line-scan camera and a vertical light sheet.
Implementation of data collection and image-processing software for insect detection and tracking.

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Last Updated: Jun 10, 2026

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Testing the OIC in a flight tunnel with a protocol to assess mosquito preference for attractants/repellents.

Main Results:

The OIC successfully counted flying insects crossing a defined vertical plane.
The system accurately recorded the horizontal position and time of each insect's passage.
Preliminary experiments demonstrated the OIC's ability to gather spatial and temporal data on mosquito behavior.

Conclusions:

The optical insect counter offers a reliable and straightforward method for obtaining detailed spatial and temporal data of insect movement.
This technology has significant potential for advancing insect behavior research and ecological monitoring.