As part of Lincoln University's Biological Diversity course (Ecol202), we run a series of Nature Journal exercises where students practise species identifications and monitoring techniques. This mission is the Backyard Invertebrate Hunt, where everyone puts out one pitfall trap in their garden. We use the information as an introduction to invertebrate diversity and an index of invertebrate diversity and abundance in gardens.

While few of the observations in this project will be identified to species, the observations together should be a useful measure of the varying diversity of invertebrates in different parts of the Lincoln-Christchurch landscape.

Interested students can progress to Ento304, Entomology, where they learn all about insect identification and specimen curation (amongst other things).

Note that many of the photos are taken with smart phone cameras through Lincoln University's antique dissecting microscopes, at 15 X or 30 X magnification (until 2016 when we got fancy new dissecting scopes). less ↑