Dry soda bottle fly trap

Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago

End goal is to make something that works roughly like this:https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef010
Basically, the trap is placed over some bait. Attracted by light, flies fly up the cone into a net area, where they are trapped and eventually dry out and die.
The benefit over the wet inverted cone style traps (where the flies are trapped in the same area as the bait, like the million fruit fly traps on here) is that the flies are trapped in a separate area and you don't have a cycle of flies entering, laying eggs, eggs hatching, maggots maturing, etc making a fly generator that looks super effective at catching flies but maybe doesn't work as well as you think. (Which you can avoid by changing the bait more regularly but...) And when you empty the trap, you end up with a bunch of clean, dry flies that you can stick in a bird feeder (or feed to fish or reptiles) instead of a wet maggoty mess.
My goal is to design a version based around a soda bottle. It will have:
Cone made from the top of the soda bottle plus a printed attachment to keep the flies from escaping
Cylindrical trap area to fit around the cone. Possible variations:
Minimal frame to support some kind of netting.
Frame to attach a cylinder made of cut up plastic bottle
Fully printed mesh-like cylinder

Base to hold the cone and allow flies to enter, maybe combined with a fly proof bait holder (so there's no breeding in the bait)