The Asian beetle collection of Alfred Russell Wallace
The Coleoptera collection contains eight to ten million specimens and over one hundred thousand type specimens, housed in 22,000 drawers.
The Museum’s Coleoptera collection is among the oldest and most important in the world.
The collection includes Sir Joseph Banks' Coleoptera collection, which dates back to the eighteenth century.
Strengths:
The Coleoptera collection includes type material of almost 100,000 species, including types from:
- Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
- David Sharp (1840-1922)
- George C. Champion (1859-1927)
- George R. Waterhouse (1810-1888)
- Charles O. Waterhouse (1843-1917)
- Rev. Thomas Blackburn (1844-1912)
- Thomas Broun (1838-1919)
- Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe (1813-1893)
- Henry Walter Bates (1825-1892)
- George Lewis (1829-1926)
The collection also houses around 5,000 beetles from Charles Darwin's Beagle voyage and material from the Biologia Centrali Americana.
Recent acquisitions include the Hugues Bomans collection of stag beetles and the Voříšek collection of weevils.
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The coleoptera collection is being digitised
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If you would like to use any specimens for research
Material type
- Spirit
- Pinned
Specimens
10,000,000
Type specimens
100,000
Species
200,000
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A selection of specimens from the Hugues Bomans stag beetle collection
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Ceroglossus darwinii a specimen collected from the Andes of Chile by Charles Darwin during his five year voyage on the HMS Beagle (1831 - 1836).
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Chafer, Gnorimus nobilis. Photographed for the Royal Mail's Rare and Endangered species stamp.
Country of origin
The collection has worldwide geographical coverage with excellent historical coverage of:
- Australasia
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Southeast Asia
- Japan and the Indian subcontinent
It is uneven though, with notable weaknesses from:
- Eastern Europe
- North Asia
- China
- North Africa
- North and South America
Contemporary fieldwork has often been concentrated on South America in an attempt to redress this situation.
Important historical collections
- Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
- David Sharp (1840-1922)
- George C Champion (1859-1927)
- George R Waterhouse (1810-1888)
- Charles O Waterhouse (1843-1917)
- Rev. Thomas Blackburn (1844-1912)
- Thomas Broun (1838-1919)
- Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe (1813-1893)
- Henry Walter Bates (1825-1892)
- George Lewis (1829-1926)
- Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820)
- Around 5,000 beetles from Charles Darwin's Beagle voyage
- J A Power (1810-1886)
- Horace Donisthorpe (1870-1951)
- Rev. C E Tottenham (1895-1977)
- Eric Gowing-Scopes (1913-2007)
- A A Allen (1913-2010)
- Derek Lott (1953-2011)
- Eric Philp (1930-2013)
- Ian Menzies
- Laurie Christie
- Hugues Boman’s collection of stag beetles
- Oldrich Voříšek collection of weevils
- Luigi Magnano collection of weevils
- Milan Krajcik collection of flower chafers
- Recent Smith and Takano expeditions to east Africa
Related information
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.