Insects Abound Year-Round at the Museum
Summer often brings insects to the front of our minds. Museum staff, along with volunteers from the Maine Entomological Society, also have insects on their minds. For them, it is a year-round concern as they care for and study over 200,000 insect specimens in the museum’s collection. The state’s largest, this collection provides infinite information about Maine’s environment. For example, a group of aquatic insects, collected by the Department of Environmental Protection, is vital in monitoring the quality of Maine streams; a large collection of forest insects, assembled by the Maine Forest Service, provides an important window to the health of Maine’s woodlands.
Without the insect collection preserved by the museum in perpetuity, knowledge of state and regional biodiversity would be much more limited. And without volunteers, the museum couldn’t fulfill its important mission to care for this significant collection. Thanks to all!
