Illinois Natural History Survey Insect Collection

03/05/2025

03/28/2024

New species of rove beetle described from our collection!

Chatzimanolis & Solomon.A of Ikaros Chatzimanolis and Brunke with an Updated Key to the Species ( : : : Xanthopygina) https://doi.org/10.1649/0010-065X-78.1.26

01/22/2024

Come work with us this summer! If you know a student in an underrepresented group in science, please apply!

In collaboration with the Graduate College’s Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP), PRI is offering hands-on summer internships that will enable undergraduate students from populations underrepresented in graduate study at Illinois to explore careers in applied science. This opportunity is ...

11/18/2023

quiz! This one is even hard to get to order, much less species. From the mountains of Oregon. Hint: it’s atypical even for its order, which is already atypical. From the insect collection

06/01/2022

Is this suddenly an post? Nope! Swipe right to see what insects make these awesome
These are members of the family of wasps, which are gall formers in many, many kinds of plants. This species, Andricus quercuscalifornicus, induces plant cancer on white oaks, forming a home and providing food for their larvae. The falls can be up to 12 cm wide, while the wasp is only about 6 mm long!

05/24/2022

Just finished databasing our newly identified Rhipiceridae in the Insect Collection. These beautiful beetles have a weird biology for - their larvae are external parasites on cicada nymphs underground! Not to mention they look FABULOUS with their ! Adults are locally common in the fall in eastern North America on tree trunks.

07/16/2021

Okay those moths were pretty but these white witches are HUGE! The larger one is easily bigger than my hand. Collected in Honduras and Peru, these are some of the largest in the insect collection

07/16/2021

Check out these amazing Arachnis moths from the western USA!

05/01/2021

The weather is warmer, flowers are in bloom, and ticks are in full swing.

01/22/2021

Ever heard of “rain beetles”? We digitized & photographed a whole family of beetles yesterday, the ! These hairy scarabs are only known from western NA (which might be why we only have 18 specimens). Females don’t fly & are rarely collected. Most of our specimens are males, which fly around looking for females during a brief time period of the fall/winter rainy season in California, Oregon, & Washington. Some are only out for a single day in a year! They are incredibly understudied, and we know almost nothing about what they do underground for up to 13 years. So good to digitize these specimens so the data can be used by experts.