Entomology Research Museum

The Entomology Research Museum is the insect collection of the Department of Entomology of the University of California, Riverside. It contains approximately 4 million total insect specimens, over 3 million of which are pinned, roughly 400,000 mounted on slides, the remainder preserved in ethanol (including most of the non-insect arthropods, and some snails). Of the ~4 million curated holdings, approximately 75% of are identified to genus level or better. An estimated 25% of the entire collection are Hymenoptera, 21% are Coleoptera, 18% Diptera, and 18% Lepidoptera.

This is the second oldest of the University of California entomological collections. The first specimens were transferred from the California State Insectary at Sacramento by Harry Smith in 1923. Other sizable personal collections were added by P.H. Timberlake in 1924 and L.D. Anderson in 1948, and the G.P. McKenzie collection of North American Coleoptera was purchased in 1965. The division of Entomology museum was formalized by E.I. Schlinger in 1962, and is now one of the 20 largest insect collections in the United States, and one of the 10 largest strictly University-based collections. For many of the special taxonomic collections, such as specimens from southern California, the effective rank is considerably higher.