The Making of a Pooter

The other day I posted about my lad's interest in a pooter and could we make one.    Today I promised him we would make one, but he had to do the leg work to find the necessary materials.

He did so.  :)

We had looked at a variety of sites, and decided to cobble together our own idea of how to make one.   We used tubing from an old aquarium, a mason jar with a wide mouth lid, ring, some screening from an old mosquito hat and kleenex plugs up an end to keep bugs in once they are trapped and we are looking to transport them.  Hubby helped with the drilling of the holes.   I learned the HOT water is a very helpful aid in putting the tubing into the holes.

I wanted to attach the screening with glue but the lad was quite insistent that tape would do the trick.  And it works, I just wanted something a bit more permanent.   BUT lack of permanency may be a good thing as well, time will tell.

One of the things we were consistently warned about is the need to make sure you are sucking through the correct pipe!  If you don't, you may end up with a bug down  your throat.   Not what one wishes to have happen.  :)

he has some dirt stuff in the tubing. We worked it out and he did a hard blast to get the rest out.

Here the lad has a leaf hopper in the jar.  :)  He had a bunch of ants already that he sucked up.   One thing to be aware of when catching ants on a dug up dirt hill.... when you suck up the ants you will also suck up some dirt and that might clog the tubing.

One of the advantages of using a large diameter tubing then what they called for in the various pages we looked at, is that we can catch somewhat larger insects.   It is a rather cool invention and we're very happy to have learned about it.    it will be coming on vacation with us.

Ants are VERY quick and hard to catch. BUT when they are crawling on you it is easy to scoop them up with the pooter.

Some of the helpful links we discovered.

Pooters, the Insect catcher.
Bugs Ed.
Bug Club.

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