Study Group "Practical Entomology / Museum Entomology"

In entomology, it is often necessary to make preparations of objects and to store them professionally. Basically, the task is to prevent the natural decay of the objects during preparation and conservation, but also to preserve their authenticity to the highest degree in order to enable meaningful scientific work with the preparations. On the other hand, the entomologist may be confronted with problems where inadequately prepared or incorrectly stored material has already been damaged. In all these cases, special preparation and conservation methods or procedures are required to restore the biological objects. These are very diverse and can vary from case to case.

In order to facilitate an exchange of experience on all these questions and to create a contact and contact point, a working group "Practical Entomology / Museum Entomology" has now been founded. The working group is organized under the umbrella of the DGaaE, but contributors and interested parties need not be members of this society. Rather, the working group is addressed to all those who work entomologically-organismically and are interested in the appropriate methodology for obtaining, properly preserving and storing their research objects, e.g. faunists and taxonomists as well as employees in scientific collections such as curators, taxidermists and collection managers. But also to teachers and environmental educators, who want to produce illustrative specimens themselves or have been entrusted with old collections. Last but not least to students who have to deposit voucher specimens as part of their work. It makes no difference whether they are professional or hobby entomologists.

One or two meetings of the working group are planned every year, where special aspects of practical entomological work will be discussed by means of short lectures, but above all, personal discussions will provide an opportunity to exchange experiences about different methods, the legal basis, and also with suppliers of equipment.

If you are interested in this working group or would like to participate, please contact Mr. Händel.

Contact

Hans-Joachim Händel
Zentralmagazin naturwissenschaftlicher Sammlungen der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Zoologische Sammlung
Domplatz 4, 06099 Halle (Saale), Germany
Tel.: +49 345 - 552 644 7, Fax: +49 345 - 552 715 2
Email