The Linnaean Insect Collection

The Linnean Society of London holds some 9,000 specimens, including 3,200 Linnaean ones, of which many are important types. After acquiring the collections from the widow of Linnaeus in 1784, Sir James Edward Smith, the founder and first President of the Linnean Society, added his own specimens to the collection, almost trebling its size.  Because of difficulties in recognising all the material interpolated by Smith it has been maintained as a single historic collection.  Besides insects as we understand them today, the collection also includes such things as spiders, scorpions, millipedes and crabs – all ‘insects’ as Linnaeus understood them.

The prime scientific importance of the Linnaean part of the collection is as type* specimens for the species which he described.  Smith's material (which can often be distinguished from Linnaeus' by the type of pins used to secure specimens) is a valuable source of information on insects from around the globe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but so far has been little exploited.

[*A type specimen is one which is permanently associated with a given scientific name, and acts as a permanent reference point to confirm the identity of the species to which the name must apply.]

For more information see "The 'Linnaean' insect collection" by Mike Fitton and Kim Harman in The Linnean Special Issue No. 7, 2007, 'The Linnaean Collections'.

By the time of his death in 1778, Linnaeus had named some 305 species of butterfly, all but 6 of which still bear their Linnaean name today.  Many of the best known, most intensively studied and most important species were named by him.  Below are what may be considered Linnaeus' "top five" butterfly species (for full text see "Linnaeus' Butterflies" by R. I. Vane-Wright in The Linnean Special Issue No. 7, 2007, 'The Linnaean Collections').

• The American Monarch (Danaus plexippus L.)  Perhaps the best known butterfly in the world, the remarkable annual migration of almost countless millions of Monarchs have inspired wonder and awe, as well as bringing innumerable new insights into the ecology and physiology of this remarkable insect.  For more information see press release: The Plight of the Monarch Butterfly

• The Large White (Pieris brassicae L.) Bane of the cabbage grower, this species is useful for all manner of biochemical, physiological, ecological and behavioural investigations.

• The Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui L.) One of the most beautiful of the common butterflies, this species is intriguing because of its incredible geographic range and remarkable ability to disperse.

• The Green Hairstreak (Callophrys rubi L.) A master of camouflage, studies of the colouration of this species have contributed to an explosion of interest in the biophysics of photonic structures.

• The Paris Peacock (Papilio paris L.) is one of the most stunningly beautiful of all the butterflies and gives a perfect example of how the colour patterns of butterflies are built up from individual scales.

High quality digital images of the insect specimens are currently being produced as part of the Society's CARLS Programme.  The project is creating an electronic archive, enabling increased access and aiding conservation of the collection.  The photographic work is being undertaken at the Natural History Museum in London. 

The digitised collection allows anyone, whether a specialist researcher or someone with a more general interest, to check details on-line from high definition images. It reduces, but does not eliminate, the need for handling the specimens and thereby contributes to their long-term preservation.

In order to image a specimen, labels are removed and the specimens are photographed on a glass-topped box to eliminate shadows.  The labels are photographed separately. Mounted butterflies and moths require an essentially two-dimensional treatment. Other specimens, such as beetles and flies, require a more three-dimensional approach and special software is being used to create these images. The software combines the sharply focussed parts of a series of images, focussed at different heights on the specimen, to produce a completely in-focus image.

For most specimens four images are taken, but sometime three or five.  This may be views of (i) dorsal, ventral, detail and labels, or (ii) dorsal, lateral, ventral and labels, or (iii) dorsal, lateral, detail and labels.  At the same time as specimens are imaged a new label is attached to each one with a unique identifier and an initial database entry is created.  This database is currently being augmented with more information about each specimen.

The Linnaean butterflies and moths have now been digitised, together with the first tranche of Lepidoptera specimens from the collection of Sir James Edward Smith, and are available online.