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Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects / Feed

Camera trapping for insects is becoming a reality using advances in camera, AI, and autonomous systems technologies. This group discusses the latest advances, shares experiences, and offers a space for anyone interested in the technology, from beginners to experts.

Group curators

Tom August
Computational ecologist with interests in computer vision, citizen science, open science, drones, acoustics, data viz, software engineering, public engagement
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discussion

Mini AI Wildlife Monitor

Luke Ditria

25 June 2025 12:27pm

Hi All!I've been working on various version of small AI edge compute devices that run object detection and Identification models for ecological monitoring!I've recently been...

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Luke Ditria

7 June 2026 1:56pm

Hi, 
I'll try to answer the best I can.
1. 
A Pi Pico would not have the power to record and store very high resolution images
To drive the LEDs you'll need to use an LED driver module or a simple MOSFET, alternatively there are IR LED modules with a daylight sensors on them to automatically switch the LEDs on at night.
The resolution required will depend on the distance from the camera to the target and the focal length of your lens (aka how zoomed in you are).

2.
How is the Pi Zero being woken up? a PIR sensor would not likely work for insects.  also the Pi Zero takes about 10seconds to wake up from shutdown.
When does it cut power? if the battery runs out there is not much you can do?

3.
All depends on exactly what your setup is, though I would recommend fixed focus for insects.
Again without knowing your exact setup I can't really recommend a specific camera, all I can say is "get the best you can afford".


 

Sandro Von Matter

7 June 2026 6:33pm

Hey Luke,

Appreciate your reply, very much.

I am not quite sure what you mean by setup but, this is the experimental design.

I will deploy cameras in shade forest areas to record insect visitors to animal feces. The “baits” will be deployed in a flat square with a camera pointing down on it at a distance of 30 to 40 cm.

So, following your comments if PIR doesnt work what should I use? Motioneyes? Or something else?

My comments regarding the battery are related to the PI shutting down when the battery level is low and some hats just stop supplying power automatically instead of being in standby/hold. So I wonder if I could do something coding/physically to solve it. Can I?

Following your advice about the fixed lens, I would need to adjust the focus for each camera in the field to ensure everything is in focus, is that right? It's a little different than a month trap since the surface where the insects will move around is not exactly even, hence my thoughts on using a autofocus camera.

Once again thanks for the help, and congrats on your elegant project.

 

 

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discussion

Safe and Sound project report: Is Camtrap DP a suitable standard for (bio)acoustic data?

Julia Wiel

18 March 2026 4:17pm

Dear WILDLABS community,We are pleased to share with you the publication of the Safe and Sound project report: Is Camtrap DP a suitable...

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Kristoffer Noriel Ordoñez

12 April 2026 6:19pm

Your report on extending Camtrap DP to bioacoustics resonated with something we are just beginning to explore in Mindoro Island, Philippines.

We have ongoing camera trap deployments in interior forest habitats and are beginning to examine the acoustic layer embedded in those recordings, particularly for nocturnal species such as the Mindoro Boobook. The discussion around terminology and how datasets are structured feels especially relevant, though I am still trying to understand how frameworks like Camtrap DP would apply in practice to this kind of data.

It is encouraging to see this direction being shaped at the community level. I will be following this closely as we continue to learn and figure out how our own datasets might eventually align.

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discussion

Mothbox firmware 5.2.0 update! + Call for user info!

Andrew Quitmeyer

21 March 2026 7:21pm

Firmware release 5.2.0! (and version 4.18.0 for DIY with same features).In between Mothbox workshops, we managed to tackle some long standing features that we...

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Andrew Quitmeyer

21 March 2026 7:25pm

oh and one other fun update, we finally got https://www.mothbox.org!  It just redirects to the same documentation site as before, but it's much easier to type!

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discussion

Camera trap or fixed-camera setups for insect guild monitoring at dung/carrion stations (Brazil)

Dominee Cagle

24 January 2026 8:51pm

Hi everyone,I’m a PhD student in tropical ecology based in Brazil, and I’m currently planning a field pilot that will use cameras to monitor invertebrate (insect) activity at...

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Andrew Quitmeyer

3 March 2026 2:14pm

@Hubertszcz maybe you have advice: "Minimum resolution or lens characteristics that are sufficient for guild-level classification" 

 

i don't really know what guild-level means.

 

@domvonmatter - do you have a photo or drawing example of what a carrion station would look like on the forest floor? like will the camera be on the ground? Will it be above the ground but looking down?

how big of an area does it need to image?

 

what data do you need to get out? Like behavior that might need full motion video but maybe lower visual resolution? or just identification that might need lower temporal resolution, but higher visual resolution

Robert (Bob) Zak

6 March 2026 11:28pm

There aren’t that many close-focus trail cameras.  The only current model I’m aware of is the GardePro E8PCF.  It is fixed focus at 200mm (no zoom).  I have not used this camera, but know others who have.  It has a timelapse feature. One thing to check before buying is that the timelapse feature works at night.  The GP website has a picture that suggests this true, but I know (for example) that in Browning camera timelapse does not work at night.

[There are other options.  You can attach lenses from reading glasses to a standard focus trail camera to convert it to close focus.  I have developed firmware hacks for older Browning SpecOps and ReconForce cameras that allows the timelapse to work around the clock.  Alas, these hacks don’t work on the latest HP5-Ultra models, and retrofitting optics on a pile of cameras is probably not how you want to spend your time. I'd try the GP]

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discussion

Mothbox March Updates

Andrew Quitmeyer

3 March 2026 2:34pm

We just got back from ICTC in Peru! It was an amazing conference put together by the team at Wildlabs that was really engaging despite being HUGE! Congrats ICTC team!Manufacturing...

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article

Join the 2026 #Tech4Wildlife Challenge! (Feb. 2-6)

WILDLABS Team

20 January 2026 6:21pm

For the 10th year in a row, we’re inviting the community to share photos and videos of how they’re engaging with technology for wildlife conservation. Participate to connect with the community, vote for your favorites,...

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Carly Batist

20 January 2026 10:22pm

Best time of the year! 

Susan Chege Reuben

2 February 2026 9:45am

This year am In for the @tech4Wildlife challenge

Barnabas Sani

25 February 2026 9:47am

Any prize for the winners?
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event

Edge AI for Conservation Workshop

Jenna Kline, PhD

14 January 2026 9:04pm

Deploying Intelligence Where It Matters Most

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discussion

Mothbox Open Hours - Thursday 1pm UTC-5 (+ More updates)

Andrew Quitmeyer

16 December 2025 3:46pm

We met so many wonderful folks during our trip to the Entomological Society and other visits in the US! Here's some last updates of the year!Online Open Hours - Thursday...

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Arky

24 December 2025 4:56am

Gearing up for May Moth Madness. 

@hikinghack Couldn't join the open hours as I am across the planet. Is there a recording somewhere ?

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discussion

Testing Raspberry Pi cameras: Results

Tom August

5 May 2023 5:11pm

So, we (mainly @albags ) have done some tests to compare the camera we currently use in the AMI-trap with the range of cameras that are available for the Pi. I said in a thread...

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Michael Bunsen

10 January 2024 11:47pm

Hey @kimhendrikse , thanks for all these details. I just caught up. I like your approach of supporting multiple object detectors and using the python websockets wrapper! Is your code available somewhere?

Kim Hendrikse

11 January 2024 6:02am

Yep, here:

Currently it only installs on older Jetsons as in the coming weeks I’ll finish the install code for current jetsons.


Technically speaking, if you were an IT specialist you could even make it work in wsl2 Ubuntu on windows, but I haven’t published instructions for that. If you were even more of a specialist you wouldn’t need wsl2 either. One day I’ll publish instructions for that once I’ve done it. Though it would be slow unless the windows machine had an NVidia GPU and you PyTorch work with it.

Donald Hobern

1 December 2025 3:39am

Have your findings/recommendations changed since 2023 on possible RPi cameras? 

Has there been experience trying to use the different cameras (particularly the Hawkeye) in hot climates? The Pi Camera 3 lasts only a few months here before the lens cover/filter becomes all milky.

And is it correct that the IMX519 and Hawkeye work for our purposes without additional lenses?

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discussion

Insect cameras in The Inventory

Tom August

1 May 2024 9:26pm

So... WildLabs just launched the Inventory and there is a SERIOUS lack of insect cameras on there. So, a call out to this community to get that fixed!@Max_Sitt...

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Luca Pegoraro

16 May 2024 3:16pm

Hey there @JakeBurton , sorry, I did not see your message! 

Why don't you shoot me an email with some tentative availability to luca.pegoraro (at) wsl.ch, and we take it from there? 

 

Again sorry for the delay! 

Luca Pegoraro

26 November 2025 9:55am

Hi @JakeBurton , sorry it has been ages (!), but we are finally prototyping the first version of our hardware database! 

Now would be an excellent time to briefly chat and make sure we are aligning efforts 👍

Would you mind sending me a few options to meet in the next two weeks perhaps? If you prefer, feel free to get in touch via email: [email protected]. 
 We (@LucaPego, @qgeissmann, @Graham_Smith) are based in Europe, FYI. 

Looking forward to meet! 

All the best, 

Luca. 

Jake Burton

26 November 2025 5:11pm

Hi @LucaPego! Hope all is good with you. I'll take a look who in my team is free and what times could line up and drop you an email later this week with some options. Interested to learn more about your database.

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discussion

From Scratch Tutorial on AI Object Detection

Andrew Quitmeyer

10 July 2024 2:32pm

Earlier I had put out a call for help: Anyone wanna teach me to Yolo? (Offline) trying to figure out how to set up an offline machine learning system to train on our own custom...

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Sarah Radford

15 October 2025 8:44am

I'm currently considering either using fiftyone or possibly building something myself to validate my insect model predictions, would be really grateful if anyone else has experience using fiftyone or similar software and would share their thoughts and experience :)

Andrew Quitmeyer

22 October 2025 5:25pm

We started getting frustrated with fiftyone, and are working with a friend to build really nice user friendly data labeler. We will share here when it is ready! Maybe that can help you out? 

 

I got frustrated with 51 because there were some weird bugs in terms of the user interaction that really started holding us back

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discussion

AI TECH FOR CONSERVATION,

Samuells keshine

27 August 2025 7:09pm

in the last 3 months we hosted allander hobbs, an under graduated student from the university of edinbrugh, UK .during his interactive section with the kids on study of...

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Alex Rood

9 September 2025 2:17pm

Hi! Could you provide more information about the project so folks in the community can read more and give their input, views, and comments like you requested? Perhaps there is a webpage to learn more that you can share.

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discussion

Mothbox Documentary [Wildlabs Award 2024)

Andrew Quitmeyer

5 August 2025 8:10pm

Over the past months we have been putting together a video recapping last year's heaps of progress on the Mothbox fueled by funding from the Wildlabs Award 2024!We collected...

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Odette Curtis-Scott

6 August 2025 11:59am

Hi there... we are looking at projects involving camera trapping for pollinators in a Critically Endangered ecosystem (renosterveld - near the southern tip of Africa). I cannot access these videos... I get an error message saying the site cannot be reached...? 

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