PEET - Austral Staphylinidae

Methods | Collecting Methods for Staphylinidae and other Staphylinoidea | Direct Collection Methods: Hand Collection ("Niche collecting")

Hand collecting is very effective because a range of different microhabitats can be targeted. Important microhabitats for collecting staphylinid beetles include fungi of various sorts, dead wood (which usually contains a variety of fungal microhabitats), under bark of standing dead trees and logs, from flowers, vegetation, carrion, stream edge debris, among stones and gravel at the edge of water courses, and in or under rotting algae and driftwood on ocean beaches. Fresh animal dung is also a good source of several different staphylinid subfamilies and other staphylinoids such as Leiodidae and Ptiliidae. The most important piece of equipment for hand collecting is a pooter, but other necessary items include a bricklayer’s hammer, which can be useful for debarking logs or dislodging rocks, (a knife or sharp shovel is also suitable), a 1 x 1 m or so piece of white plastic, which can be useful for separating beetles from substrate (i.e. they are contained on the sheet and easily spotted). Some workers instead use a shallow white plastic or metal tray, which can also serve as a mini beating sheet. Ocean beaches and the coastal zone in general (dunes, sandy beaches, mudflats, rocky shores, littoral vegetation, etc.) are probably the main setting in which hand collecting is of necessity the primary collecting method.

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