North Carolina State University Insect Museum

Coordinates: 35°47′15″N 78°40′21″W / 35.787638°N 78.67262°W / 35.787638; -78.67262

NCSU Insect Museum
Drawer of insects from the NCSU Insect Museum.
Established	1952
Location	North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
Type	Natural History Museum
Collection size	1.5 million specimens
Director	Andrew R. Deans
Website	insectmuseum.org

The NCSU Insect Museum is the center for research and training in insect systematics and biodiversity informatics at North Carolina State University. The Museum's collections hold more than 1.5 million specimens^[1], with major emphases on the insects of North Carolina and on the Auchenorrhyncha and Aphididae (Hemiptera) of the world. A smaller but historically important (especially for bees of the eastern USA) and rapidly increasing portion of the collection is dedicated to Hymenoptera^[2].

History

Deitz (1983a^[3] and 1983b^[4]) provides the most comprehensive reviews of the history of the NCSU Insect Museum. Insect reference collections started growing soon after the foundation of NC State University in 1889, with each individual collection being cared for by one curator. These multiple independent collections across campus were then collated into a single resource in 1952, then referred to as the Entomology Museum. This effort was organized by Zeno P. Metcalf, an Auchenorrhyncha systematist who served as the Insect Museum's first director.

This museum has since been referred to as the NCSU Insect Museum, and it continues to serve as a resource for entomologists who need to identify specimens, for researchers attempting to understand more about species distributions through time, for students learning insect taxonomy, and as a repository for vouchers that reference entomological research. The Museum also hosts an annual poetry contest called the Hexapod Haiku Challenge^[5].

References

1. ^ "Insect Museum main page". NCSU Insect Museum. http://insectmuseum.org/index.php. Retrieved 2010-05-10. 
2. ^ "Deans and Ernst". Deans, AR and AF Ernst. 2009. Past, present, and future of the NCSU Insect Museum. Entomological Collections Network annual meeting, December 2009. http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dcbch2k9_1175qdmq66dt&invite=CJ_rkugD. Retrieved 2010-05-10. 
3. ^ Deitz, L. L. (1983). "Featured institution - North Carolina State University at Raleigh". Association of Systematics Collections Newsletter 11: 65–69. 
4. ^ Deitz, L. L. (1983). "North Carolina State University Insect Collection". Tymbal, Auchenorrhyncha Newsletter (Commonwealth Institute of Entomology, London) 2: 8. 
5. ^ Insect Museum website. http://insectmuseum.org/haiku.php

External resources

• North Carolina State University
• North Carolina State University Entomology Department and graduate program
• NCSU Insect Museum website
• NCSU LSID - urn:lsid:biocol.org:col:1024
• Zoomable image of pinned insects from the NCSU Insect Museum