Entomological collection

Another day of taking photographs for Pete's upcoming lectures on entomology for the Leeds University Masters course in Conservation. Yesterday we were mostly covering field-craft and trapping techniques - today we've moved on to storage and curation. This is one of Pete's store-boxes containing specimens of bugs that he's collected over the forty or so years he's been an entomologist. I don't know how many store-boxes he has, but they occupy two complete walls in his lab, and have spilled out onto the landing. Eventually Chris will inherit this important reference collection, or they may decide to donate it to a museum, though sadly few local museums have anyone with the expertise to maintain biological collections. 

I'm currently involved with a new Heritage Lottery funded project which involves transfer of an important historical Lincolnshire herbarium to the Natural History Museum, where it will be re-curated, preserved and scanned so this it is available online. At the moment it is at risk of damage from pests and mould. The project will also involve collection and curation of an example set of present day Lincolnshire plants. Although photography of both insects and plants provides much useful information, preserved specimens can yield so much more data and are still have an important role to play in taxonomic and ecological research.