Coleoptera Collection and Card Index
Introduction
It is estimated that about 70% of all animals are insects. The insect order Coleoptera comprises an estimated 277,000 to 350,000 described species, which is not less than 40% of all insects and about one-third of all animals.
The Coleoptera collections at The Natural History Museum are one of the most important specialist collections of beetles in the World. The collections comprise several million identified specimens plus a very large collection of sorted but as yet unidentified material referred to as 'accessions'.
The Coleoptera collections are currently housed in wooden drawers in steel cabinets on the second floor of the Department of Entomology and comprise a Main collection of dry mounted specimens, a British collection of dry mounted specimens, several special collections of dry mounted specimens eg the Broun Collection, the Wollaston Collection and the Bomans Collection, a Spirit collection and a Microscope slide collection. Most of this material is identified to species (or infrapecies where appropriate).
The Main collection comprises nearly 195,500 species and subspecies, 42% of which are represented by type specimens. The Coleoptera Collection Index does not include species and subspecies in the slide or spirit collections, but these comprise relatively few species and subspecies not already in the Main collection and even fewer type-specimens. The Bomans Collection is being incorporated into the Main collection and includes types of nearly 600 species and subspecies and an additional c. 1,000 species and subspecies not currently represented in the Main collection or the Coleoptera Collection Index, although all specimens have been databased at the species level. The species group taxa will be added in the near future.
The Coleoptera collection was databased a genus level between 1996-1998 and at species level between 1998-2003 by curators and volunteers (see Personnel and their roles) using the Collection Index module of the Department's Collection Management System, programmed by Brian Pitkin in Paradox using Paradox Advanced language (PAL). Each superfamily of beetles (see Classification) was in a separate relational database accessible from an interactive menu.
Higher classification: The higher classification used here is that used in the collection. This arrangement may not always follow the most recently accepted higher classification. Superfamily and family are included for all genus-group names and species-group names. Subfamily names within the Anobiidae, Cantharidae, Carabidae, Elateridae and Staphylinidae, are only used for those subfamilies that were previously treated as families (see Classification). Within families where subfamily names are used but a subfamily has not been assigned the expression 'Unassigned' is used.
Genus-group names: Genus-group names were extracted from the species index by querying each of the superfamily databases. The resulting database of genus-group names was then queried against the index to Coleoptera genera compiled between 1996-1998 to import the drawer number, recorder and entry date, where they existed.
Where subgenera are used, not all of the species-group names included in the genus are assigned to a subgenus. The Coleoptera Collection Index currently includes 19,035 genera and 919 subgenera.
Author's names and year of publication have been added for many genus-group names of Carabidae (following Irwin - http://entomology.si.edu/Entomology/CarabidGenus/genweb.lasso) and Curculionoidea (following Zarazaga & Lyal, C.H.C., 1999).
Species-group names: Species-group names are given as spelt on labels in the collection. The Coleoptera Collection Index currently includes 188,793 species and 5,354 infraspecies of which 188,504 species and 98 subspecies are represented in the Main collection.
Where there is an subspecies in the collection not represented by its nominate subspecies, the nominate subspecies has been added to the index. Nominate subspecies have the 'Subspecies' field blank to assist with sorting ie the nominate subspecies will always precede other subspecies of the same species when the taxa are sorted alphabetically.
Where there is a species-group junior synonym in the collection not represented by its senior, the senior species-group name has been added to the index, although without an author and year.
Author's names: The author's names of species-group names are frequently abbreviated on the labels in the collection, which are often hand-written and therefore not always easy to interpret. On occasions a different abbreviation has been used for the same author. Moreover some of the abbreviations are ambiguous and could represent more than one author. As a result many of the author's names used in the Index are left as abbreviations pending verification.
Year: The collection labels do not often give the year of publication of a taxon. If they do, then this year is included, otherwise it is left blank. The Coleoptera collection includes several apparently undescribed taxa. Such taxa are identified by 'MS' or 'MS?' in the 'Year' field. Some of these may have been described since they were indexed.
Rank: The rank of every taxon is given either as 'Genus', 'Subgenus', 'Species', 'Subspecies', 'Variety' or 'Form'. It is not always clear from the labels in the collection whether a trinomen represents a subspecies, aberration, variety or form. Unless a trinomen is specifically labelled as an aberration, variety or form, it is treated here for the present as a subspecies. Aberrations, varieties and forms, although not valid under the International Code for Zoological nomenclatures unless described before 1961, are included pending determination of their date of publication.
Availability: Junior species-group names represented by type-specimens in the collection are included with the senior name. The status of junior species-group names is indicated by the expression 'Junior synonym' or 'Junior homonym'. All other taxa except infrasubspecific names are currently recorded as 'Valid name'. Infrasubspecific names are recorded as '? Unavailable name' pending date of publication.
Type specimens: If a species or infraspecies is represented by a type-specimen (or type specimens) in the collection the status of the type (or types) is given as an abbreviation. If there is more than one type specimen then the number of specimens in the collection precedes the abbreviation. Where more than one category of type specimen is present in the collection, each is given starting with the primary types and followed by secondary types, separated by a comma. If the number of type specimens has not been determined precisely this is indicated by including the category of the type-specimens followed by 's'.
On occasions where a species includes junior synonym, the type specimen (or specimens) could be either the type specimen (or specimens) of the senior or junior name (or both).
The following abbreviations are used:
| AT | = Allotype |
| CT | = Cotype |
| HMT | = Homotype |
| HT | = Holotype |
| LT | = Lectotype |
| NT | = Neotype |
| PLT | = Paralectotype |
| PT | = Paratype |
| ST | = Syntype |
| T | = Type |
Recorder: The name of the person who entered or last modified each record is given. Some earlier records lack this information and the expression 'AUTO' is used.
Date of record: The date on which each record was entered or last modified is given. Prior to March 1999, records were not dated, so all records entered or edited prior to that date have been given the date on which the date field was added to the database.
Written by Brian Pitkin, January 2004. Last updated 16-Jul-2004