The Essig Museum of Entomology is a world-class terrestrial arthropod collection with a historical focus on surveying the insect fauna of California. Today that focus has broadened to include the eastern Pacific Rim and the islands of the Pacific Basin.
The Essig Museum is part of a consortum of museums on the UC Berkeley campus, the Berkeley Natural History Museums.
New Publication
Moths of Western North America by UC Berkeley professor Jerry A. Powell and Paul A. Opler. A beautiful and comprehensive guide to the moths of Western North America with numerous plates of color photographs and detailed genitalia illustrations by Dr. Ainsley Seago, a former UC Berkeley graduate student.
Want to learn more?
Please feel free to search our databases or find out a little bit about our research and products. We also have an especially rich museum history and have a number of special collections unique to the museum.
Interested in coming to see us?
Please join us for one of our events or arrange for a research visit.
Year of Science 2009!
The Essig Museum of Entomology is proud to be participating in Year of Science 2009, a national, yearlong, grassroots celebration of science shining the spotlight on "How We Know What We Know". Activities and events are led by a wide variety of scientific organizations under the umbrella of the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) — and it started right here at Cal! To find out more about Year of Science check out the COPUS website.
2009 also marks the year of Science at Cal, a campus-wide celebration of all things Science. This year is significant because February 12th was Charles Darwin's 200th birthday! This year, we joined other Berkeley Natural History Museums and Berkeley biology departments to commemorate this momentous occasion.
