UNH Insect and Arachnid Collections
The University of New Hampshire Insect Collection was initially started by C. M. Weed and W. F. Fisk in 1891 when the then New Hampshire Agricultural and Technical College was still in Hanover, New Hampshire. After the move to Durham in 1893, the collection has grown to over 600,000 specimens and nearly 12,000 species taken from the northern New England states (MA, ME, NH, VT). The growth of the collection has been driven by intensive inventories of 10 unique and/or natural areas within the state, including the alpine zone of Mt. Washington, Seabrook sand dunes, The Bowl Natural Area in White Mountains National Forest, and Spruce Hole kettle bog near Durham. Other strengths of the collection lie in coverage of the forest floor insect groups from the northeastern United States and northern California, though the species taken from these and other areas outside of northern New England are not reflected in the checklist.
Notable specialist donations that have added to the strength of the UNH Insect Collection are: the Alfred J. Kistler Collection of Coleoptera, the Donald J. Lennox Collection of Lepidoptera, the Wallace J. Morse Collection of Odonata, the R. Marcel Reeves Collection of Mites. Other major contributions were given by S. Albert Shaw, and Lorus and Marjory Milne.
Collection records from the northern New England states and New Hampshire inventory sites are maintained in a FileMaker Pro database, which is regularly updated. The records given here are based on specimens in the UNH collection, but eventually literature and other verifiable records will be incorporated into the checklist.
I would like to thank all specialists, past and present, for their identifications. Regional collections absolutely rely on the cooperation and enthusiasm of colleagues, for which there is often little reward other than the sharing of specimens. An accurate and thorough checklist could never be developed without your participation.
-Donald Chandler, Professor of Zoology and Curator
If you have any comments/suggestions concerning these pages or data, send e-mail to Don Chandler at: dsc1@unh.edu