Collection Holdings
The taxonomic strengths of the collection reflect its history and participants. Coleoptera (30%), with particularly large holdings of Cerambycidae (E. Gorton Linsley and John A. Chemsak) and Tenebrionidae (John T. Doyen), has the greatest number of specimens. The Lepidoptera (24%) includes the largest and most diverse collection of microlepidoptera in western North America (Jerry A. Powell). The large Hymenoptera collection (21%) is noteworthy for Apoidea (Paul D. Hurd, John McSwain, Abraham E, Michelbacher, E. Gorton Linsley, Howell V. Daly), Parasitica (Kenneth S. Hagen, Evert I. Schlinger, Robert van den Bosch), and Symphyta (Woodrow W. Middlekauff). Hemiptera (7%) has outstanding collections especially of Cimicidae (Robert L. Usinger), Aradidae, Aphididae (Edward O. Essig, Robert van den Bosch), and Psyllidae (Dilworth D. Jensen). The Diptera (11%), which was curated and contributed to by Frank Cole in his latter years, has substantial collections of Tabanidae (Woodrow W. Middlekauff), Asilidae, Bombyliidae, and parasitic families (Gordon F. Ferris, John R. Anderson). Holdings of some of the smaller arthropod groups are quite diverse and noteworthy, in particular the collections of Phthiraptera (Vernon L. Kellogg, Gordon F. Ferris), Siphonaptera (Morris A. Stewart), Thysanoptera (H. Edwin Cott), Odonata (Rosser Garrison), Orthoptera: Acrididae (Woodrow W. Middlekauff) and Arachnida, especially Araneae (Evert I. Schlinger, Charles E. Griswold), Acari (A. Earl Pritchard, Deane P. Furman), and Scorpionida.
The museum has benefited from the acquisition of several large collections from other institutions and non-UC researchers. The Vernon L. Kellogg and Gordon F. Ferris Phthiraptera collections were both acquired from Stanford University in 1961. The H. Edwin Cott Thysanoptera Collection was rescued by former collection manager John Chemsak from a garage where it was discovered after Cott’s death. Other large collection acquisitions of note include the entire insect collection of the University of California, Irvine, in 1992, containing approximately 56,000 pinned insects and an additional 31,000 Lepidoptera in riker mounts and envelopes, and in 2003, the historic research collections of UC Hastings Natural History Reservation comprising 7,000 microscope slides and 1,500 vials of specimens, the majority being rodent ectoparasites.
