Colias croceus
The Museum’s Lepidoptera collection is one of the oldest, largest and certainly the most type rich.
The collection contains 12.5 million pinned specimens and one million papered specimens housed in 80,000 drawers. There are 125,000 type specimens.
The Lepidoptera specimens are divided into two separate collections, British/Irish and international.
International collection
The collection is comprehensive in its geographical coverage. Particularly well represented areas include:
- Africa
- India
- Southeast Asia
- Australasia
This collection includes taxa described by Bates, Bethune-Baker, Boisduval, Butler, Evans, Fabricius, Felder, Fruhstorfer, Hampson, Inoue, Jordan, Leech, Meyrick, Oberthur, Prout, Rothschild, Walker, Walsingham, Wileman and Zeller.
British and Irish collection
Includes collections from Bankes, Chalmers-Hunt, Cockayne, Emmet, Ford, Goater, Jacobs, Kettlewell, Rothschild, Stainton, Stephens, Watson and West.
Material types
Specimens are carefully preserved in a variety of ways:
- dried specimens mounted on pins - the majority of adult Lepidoptera
- microscope slides - dissected body parts (e.g. genitalia), wing preparations or whole bodies
- preserved in fluid, especially Lepidoptera larvae
Looking for a specimen?
The Lepidoptera collection is being digitised
Any questions ?
If you would like to use any specimens for research
Lepidoptera collections team
Senior Curator in Charge
Principal Curators
Senior Curators
Curatorial Assistants
Robyn Crowther
Richard O’Brien
British reference collection
A British reference collection can be found at the Angela Marmount Centre for UK Biodiversity
Collections on the move
Access to some collections will be affected as we prepare for the move to our new collections, science and digitisation centre.
Accessing the collections
Scientists and collections management specialists can visit the collections and borrow specimens for research.
Collections management
Our duty is to provide a safe and secure environment for all of our collections.