Which attractants should I use with targets?

It depends which species of tsetse you are trying to control.

On the one hand, palpalis-group species, such as G. fuscipes, do not respond strongly to natural host odours, and so there is little or no benefit in using attractants. On the other hand, the morstans group of flies, such as G. pallidipes, are very responsive to odours, and the performance of a target can be increased fourfold by baiting it with a blend of acetone, 1-octen-3-ol, 4-methylphenol and 3-n-propylphenol. Between these two extremes lie species that only respond to certain chemicals.

Look at the table on the right to see which species responds to which chemical. Tsetse Plan uses these data to tell you which attractants you should use for operations in your area.

There has not been a thorough test of the responses of all species of tsetse to the various attractants. If there is no information on what chemicals you should be using for your local species of tsetse, then you should think about carrying out experiments to test which attractants are effective for tsetse in your area. Tsetse Plan provides advice on how to plan and analyse experiments to do these simple investigations.