Improving the Usefulness of the Snow Entomological Museum tothe Systematics Community

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The Snow Entomological Museum at the University of Kansas is a valuable and important resource for the study of systematic entomology. The collection is strong in almost all major groups of insects, particularly North American representatives, and in some (e.g., bees, water bugs, leafhoppers and scorpion-flies) the Museum's holdings are worldwide in scope and rank among the best in the world. Recently, there has been a great increase in concern for the conservation of diverse forms of life and the loss of diversity through destruction of natural habitats, such as tropical rain forests. Museums of natural history are the repositories of examples of animal and plant diversity. And since tree-fourths of all known species of animals are insects, entomological museums are facing a growing number of requests to store specimens (samples of diversity) and to lend these to researchers studying the systematics or classification of insects. This projects will help the Snow Entomological Museum to increase its usefulness to the scientific community. Added technical assistance will speed the processing of loan requests. Visiting specialists will be brought to the Museum to sort from unidentified materials those specimens useful to their own research or that of colleagues studying related groups of insects. Equipment provided by the grant (e.g., insect drawers) will greatly increase the Museum's ability to deal with space needs resulting from detailed identification of specimens.