RESCUE!® FlyPad: An insect sticky trap with corrugated surface

Sticky insect traps have been widely used for monitoring and/or mass-trapping target pest insects in homes, greenhouses, and field crops. Typically, sticky traps are coated with adhesive covering all or a portion of a planar or curved surface of the trap. Although these traps have found success, a risk associated with these traps that rely on an exposed adhesive to entrap flying or crawling insects is that nontarget species, such as birds, bats or other small animals, may inadvertently become ensnared by the adhesive. The exposed sticky surfaces may also create an annoyance to users, for example by transferring adhesive onto a user’s hands/fingers or gloves when handling the traps, or adhering to clothing, tools, or other implements. In the presentation, I am going to introduce a novel insect sticky trap (RESCUE!^® FlyPad) with corrugated surfaces (made of a series of parallel ridges and grooves) that are coated with insect glue only in the grooves (not on the ridges) for both flying and walking insects. This new adhesive trap is effective at capturing target insects (e.g. various flies), and the adhesive-free ridges facilitate handling of the traps without contacting the adhesive and reduce the risk and likelihood of inadvertently ensnaring or adhesively engaging larger, non-target creatures.