The Insect Division houses a world-class collection with over 4.5 million specimens from all over the globe. An emphasis on specific taxonomic groups has produced outstanding collections of the Acari, Orthoptera, and Odonata, and to a lesser extent, the Homoptera, Coleoptera and Lepidoptera. The aquatic groups and a significant portion of the mite collection are databased and there is an ongoing effort to make the rest of the collection digitally accessible.

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Insect Division News

Connallon awarded Tinkle Scholarship
Tim Connallon has been awarded the Donald W. Tinkle Scholarship from the U-M Museum of Zoology. This $5,000 award is a special recognition of his research excellence. Connallon is researching the genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila. The scholarship was endowed by the family and friends of Donald W. Tinkle, former curator of herpetology and director of the Museum of Zoology. (more)

L. Lacey Knowles and Scott Edwards organized a symposium on "Species Trees and Gene Tree Heterogeneity: Concepts, Estimation and Empirical Applications", sponsored by the Society for Systematic Biology, at the 2008 Evolution Meetings, Minneapolis, MN.

L.Lacey Knowles invited to give plenary address at the 10th International Congress of Orthopterology, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.

L.Lacey Knowles invited to give invited lecture on phylogeography and population genetics, at the Brazilian Society of Genetics meeting, Bahia, Brazil, as well as a short course at San Paulo, Brazil

L.Lacey Knowles invited to give invited lecture on phylogeography and population genetics at the 2008 Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution meeting; Barcelona, Spain

Undergraduate, Yat-Hei Chan publishes paper:2008. Resolving species phylogenies of recent evolutionary radiations. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 95:224-231

The correspondence files of E.B. Williamson (1877-1933), one of our country's most pre-eminent odonatologists, will be moving from the UMMZ to the University of Michigan archives at the Bentley Historical Library. At the Bentley, Williamson's letters and notes will be catalogued and searchable, and therefore available for researchers. Williamson's collection formed the nucleus of our holdings of Odonata, and was a good friend of Alexander G. Ruthven (1882-1971), UMMZ Director and UM President.

O'Brien, M.F. and J.A. Craves. 2007. Isodontia elegans now in Michigan (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae; Sphecinae). Great Lakes Entomologist. 39(1&2):94-96.

O'Brien, M.F. 2008. Notes on Dianthidium simile (Cresson) in Michigan (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). Great Lakes Entomol. 40:(in press).