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The collections are being digitised and are accessible via the Data Portal.
Entomology collections
Specimens from the entomology collections
Browse the oldest and most important entomology collection in the world, with over 30 million insects.
Gathered over 300 years, these specimens are key to telling the history of collecting, the science of taxonomy and the human desire to understand the natural world.
Coleoptera
The collection is among the oldest and most important in the world, with approximately 22,000 drawers of specimens.
Diptera
The Diptera collection is one of the world’s leading research collections, with more than 2.5 million specimens, including important type material.
Historical collections
The Banks and Sloane collections are the only two collections maintained separately within the entomology collections.
Hymenoptera
We house one of the largest collections of Hymenoptera in the world, comprising around 3.5 million specimens with 11,000 drawers of dry pinned specimens.
Lepidoptera
The collection contains approximately 12.5 million pinned specimens and 1 million papered specimens housed in 80,000 drawers.
Siphonaptera
The flea collection of great historical importance, containing an estimated 260,000 specimens representing 73 per cent of the 2,587 described species.
Small orders
An eclectic collection of 24 orders of insects and their close relatives within Hexapoda.
Learn more about the collections
Accessing the collections
Find out how to arrange a visit to the collections and access specimens for research.
Collections management
Find out how we fulfil our duty to provide a safe and secure environment for the collections in our care.
Collections on the move
Discover how we are preparing for the UK’s largest collections move and which collections will have limited access.