Hemiptera

Hemiptera, also called 'true bugs', include three suborders: Heteroptera (bugs), Auchenorrhyncha (cicadas) and Sternorrhyncha (plant lice). However, the collection itself is still divided according to an old classification, into Heteroptera and Homoptera. The collection consists of 1,500,000 specimens. In addition to the world collection, there is a separate collection of the Netherlands. Besides the Netherlands, the main geographical focuses are Europe, Southeast Asia, Suriname/Antilles, and tropical Africa. The collection is arranged alphabetically at the level of family, subfamily, genus, and species.

History

Like the other insect collections at Naturalis, the Hemiptera collection grew out of a merger of three major zoological collections in the Netherlands: Leiden (RMNH), Amsterdam (ZMA) and Wageningen (WAU). These collections were in turn formed by historical expeditions and by donations from private researchers. Our collection is still growing through transfers of valuable private collections.

Highlights

The five groups with the most species in the collection are Harpactorinae (Heteroptera: Reduviidae), Pentatominae (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae), Coreinae (Heteroptera: Coreidae), Cicadidae (Homoptera) and Cicadellidae (Homoptera). Some of the finest specimens can be found at Naturalis' Top Items.

Key
publications

The collection is used by researchers worldwide for a variety of fields, such as ecology, phylogenetics or faunistics. An important goal is taxonomy: understanding and describing the enormous diversity of species found in urban and natural environments. In addition, the Netherlands collection has formed an important basis for the 'Verspreidingsatlas Nederlandse wantsen' (Distribution Atlas of Dutch Heteroptera) which was published in 6 volumes in between 2002 and 2021.

Aukema, B. & Hermes, D.J. 2002-2021. Verspreidingsatlas Nederlandse wantsen (Hemiptera: Heteroptera)
Duffels, J.P. (2018). Revision of the cicada genus Dilobopyga (Hemiptera, Cicadidae) from Sulawesi and the Moluccas, Zootaxa, 4409 (1)

Projects

True bugs in the picture

This is it: Pseudaufidus trifasciatus, a cicada species described in 1957 by entomologist and curator H. C. Blöte from Leiden. The cicada depicted above is not just any specimen of that species, but it is the so-called holotype: The specimen used when the…

Asilid fly, image has complete depth of field due to stacking photography

Picturae & Naturalis Digitizing insect collections

Biodiversity is under pressure, so knowledge about it is more important than ever. To be able to share and use this knowledge, natural history collections need to be available digitally. We helped Picturae to test a digitization machine for insects.