TheEntomology Research Museum is the insect collection of the Department ofEntomology of theUniversity of California, Riverside. It contains approximately 4 million totalinsect specimens, over 3 million of which are pinned, roughly 400,000 mounted onslides, the remainder preserved inethanol (including most of the non-insectarthropods, and somesnails). Of the ~4 million curated holdings, approximately 75% of are identified togenus level or better. An estimated 25% of the entire collection areHymenoptera, 21% areColeoptera, 18%Diptera, and 18%Lepidoptera.[1]
This is the second oldest of theUniversity of California entomological collections. The first specimens were transferred from theCalifornia State Insectary atSacramento byHarry Smith in 1923. Other sizable personal collections were added byP.H. Timberlake in 1924 andL.D. Anderson in 1948, and theG.P. McKenzie collection of North American Coleoptera was purchased in 1965. The division of Entomology museum was formalized byE.I. Schlinger in 1962, and is now one of the 20 largest insect collections in theUnited States, and one of the 10 largest strictly University-based collections. For many of the special taxonomic collections, such as specimens fromsouthern California, the effective rank is considerably higher.[1]
The UCR collection ofChalcidoidea (Hymenoptera) is one of the world's largest of this group, and the slide collection of Chalcidoidea has no comparison in the world (more than 100,000 slides, primarilyTrichogrammatidae,Aphelinidae,Mymaridae,Eulophidae, andEncyrtidae). Additional specialty taxa represented as slides or pinned specimens areApoidea,Asiloidea (esp.Bombyliidae,Therevidae,Asilidae),Meloidae,Thysanoptera,Staphylinidae,Melyridae,Coccinellidae,Sciomyzidae,Tephritidae,Miridae,Aphididae,Coccoidea, and various selected genera (e.g., thescarab generaPleocoma andChrysina). The holdings include over 1,100primary types and many thousands of paratypes of the preceding taxa (the majority attributable toP.H. Timberlake).[1]
The vast majority of material is from southern California,Arizona, and theBaja California Peninsula, including one of the most extensive collections of insects from theSonoran Desert (esp. Colorado Delta and Mojave components), andCoastal sage scrub ecological zones. In addition to substantial northern California holdings and other U.S. and Mexican material, there are also significant amounts of material fromCentral andSouth America, theRussian Far East and its European part,India,Australia,South Africa, andThailand. Theparasitic wasp collection is the most geographically diverse, with material from all biogeographic regions, and dating back to the early 1900s.[1]
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