Insect drawers

The entomological collection contains some 4.8 million set and labelled insect specimens from all over the world, stored in 22,000 insect drawers. For the large number of specimens it is not possible - and also not necessary in most cases - to digitize every specimen in an elaborate digitization workflow.
There is a project at the SMNS to scan the complete insect drawers and to publish the pictures as scalable versions.
The scans are made on demand, which results in a selective scanning, especially for the large collections of beetles, butterflies and moths, Hymenoptera and Diptera.

The photographed taxa are not checked for validity and denominate synonyms in some cases. This will be improved in the course of the project. Affected drawers will be scanned again and the online-pictures replaced.

Every image is a composite of 30 - 42 pictures, which were combined using stitching-software (AutoStitch or Image Composite Editor). In a few cases there are insular artefacts within the overlapping zones, because of the parallactic deviation.

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All images and photographs on these websites can be used by the Creative Commons-Licence CC by 4.0. Copyright: SMNS.

CC-BY 4.0

There is no scale bar but a color checker target placed in every drawer. Its size is 17 x 20 mm.

Color checker

Available collections

Odonata - Dragonflies and Damselflies (complete collection)

Orthoptera - Caelifera: Grasshoppers, Locusts and close relatives (complete collection)

Orthoptera - Ensifera: Crickets and close relatives (complete collection)

Blattodea - Cockroaches (complete collection)

Dermaptera - Earwigs (complete collection)

Mantodea - Praying Mantises (complete collection)

Phasmatodea - Stick and Leaf Insects (complete collection)

Neuropterida - Netwings (complete collection)

Lepidoptera - Butterflies & Moths (Baden-Württemberg)

Trichoptera - Caddisflies (complete collection)

Coleoptera - Beetles (Central Europe)

Diptera - Gnats & Flies (complete collection)

Smaller Collections of dried specimens (complete collection)

Arachnida - Spiders, Scorpions & Allies (dried specimens only)