The week of Sep 26-30 is the Fall 2016 arthropod pitfall trapping week and we successfully trapped a multitude of amazing critters. Arthropods is the scientific word for “bug” and means insects + spiders + invertebrates with lots of legs (like those crazy centipedes)! Students from BEMP monitored 20 pitfall traps at each BEMP site. Pitfall traps are left open 48 hours. Once we collect the arthropods, we put them in a freezer to humanely euthanize them and store them until we’re ready to process our data.  We use the arthropod data to determine more about the community of creepy crawlies that lives in our bosque. From this research, we can better understand the feeding groups of arthropods (predators, herbivores, detritivores, pollinators, etc.) as well as the ratio of native to non-native or exotic arthropods. Arthropods can even help us determine how dry or moist a site is! Here is Matt Leister, BEMP’s own Entomologist, is collecting his favorite arthropod group – spiders! at the BioPark BEMP site.