Diptera: flies, mosquitoes and midges
There are about 300,000 specimens of more than 7,000 species in the collection, including type material, with new additions every year from active field campaigns.
Extensive type material
The collection offers extensive type material of more than 1,320 types, of which 780 are holotypes. The Phoridae collection of Schmitz and Beyer contains 453 types, of which 152 are holotypes. There are around 300,000 specimens of more than 7,000 species, including type material, in the collection. Most of the individuals are pinnate, but there is also a large alcohol collection containing mainly Tipulidae and Limoniidae (B. Mannheim).
The section also harbours the following specialist collections: Phoridae (H. Schmitz, E. Beyer, E. Baumann, H. Ulrich), Tipuloidea (B. Mannheims, H. Mendl), Blephariceridae (B. Mannheims, S. Kitakami), and Sciaridae (F. Lengersdorf - on long-term loan from F. Menzel of the German Entomological Institute, Müncheberg).
Focus on the western Palearctic region
While important parts of the collection stem from the Orient, the Neotropics and the Afrotropical regions, our focus is primarily on the western Palaearctic region. In addition to our own specimens, we also store the collections of Cologne Zoo and the former Fuhlrott Museum in Wuppertal.
Digitisation of the collection items
The digitisation of the collection items has not yet been completed. 2D barcodes with parts that can be read by both humans and computers are being used for this purpose. The computer programme "Diversity Workbench" is used to integrate all the information from the collection, the so-called biobank and other molecular sources in order to ultimately make the data set accessible via GBIF.
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