Insect specimens are the fundamental building blocks for all that is accomplished in monography. Studying primary types is essential for stabilizing nomenclature. Obtaining high quality material in sufficient quantity requires a concerted and consistent effort. We have approached this through three avenues.

Acquiring Specimens from Existing Collections. Museums have been combed for specimens of the family Therevidae. The worldwide systematic community has responded expediently to requests, and many have collaborated with and helped students and PIs during visits to their institutions and via letters and email. We have specifically borrowed material within the species-rich genera that we are monographing from over a hundred museums. We estimate that we now have on loan about 100,000 specimens from museums in all over the globe.
Examining Types and Other Material at Museums and Private Collections. We lack many primary types and material that remains unsorted in collections. We have visited many museums around the world to study primary types and uncover unsorted therevids. Trips have been taken to St. Petersburg, Paris, Vienna, London, Oxford, Copenhagen, Budapest, Madrid, Berlin, Eberswalde, Wiesbaden, Stuttgart, private collections of Geller-Grimm, Kassebeer, and Schmid-Egger in Europe; Tel Aviv in the Middle East; Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town, Windhoek, and Nairobi in Africa; Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Launceston, and Hobart in Australia; Tananarive in Madagascar; Auckland in New Zealand; Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Concepcion, La Serena, Lima, Quito, La Paz, and Buenos Aires in South America; San Jose (INBio), Guatemala City, and Zamorano in Central America; Mexico City, Ottawa; and many of the important collections in the United States in North America.
Increasing the Knowledge Base of Therevidae Through Expeditions. Because many areas of the world are poorly collected and because, even when abundant, therevids are difficult to collect, there are enormous taxon and geographic gaps in material in collections, and specimens of key taxa needed for molecular studies have not been properly preserved. For these reasons, we undertook a number of collecting expeditions to remote areas of the globe over the past 3 years, which were made possible by the cooperation and generosity of countless colleagues and facilitators for, among other things, hospitality and obtaining collecting and exit permits.

Our expeditions had to meet three criteria: the potential to

1) gather specimens of critical taxa for both morphological and molecular studies;
2) increase the holdings of specimens from areas lacking representation in the world's collections; and
3) explore areas of expected radiation but that have not been collected.

Expeditions thus far have included Australia (Queensland, NSW, Victoria, ACT, Tasmania), New Caledonia, New Zealand, South Africa (Natal, Cape), Namibia, Chile, Argentina, Madagascar, Israel, Denmark, Guatemala, Mexico (Baja Calif.), USA (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, California, and Utah).

Moreover, a number of Malaise traps, which are excellent for gathering therevid material, were left with colleagues in many of these countries and have produced a steady stream of material over several seasons, allowing us not only to increase our holdings, but to understand the flight phenologies of therevids in specific areas of the world. Material other than therevids collected during our expeditions has been shared with many museums and taxonomists. Wharton and Wooley (PEET project, Texas A&M Univ.) received Hymenoptera Parasitica; the National Pollinating Insect Collection, Logan, received bees; The Bohart Museum, Univ. Calif., Davis received a wide diversity of wasps; the Illinois Natural History Museum collection has been the depository of misc. material.

Back to Index
Next Topic