New Zealand Arthropod collection (NZAC) / Ko te Aitanga Pepeke o

Aotearoa

Collection and electronic information

•NZAC has the most complete coverage of terrestrial invertebrates of all the collections held in New Zealand.

• About 1 million pinned specimens, and another 5.5 million stored in ethanol.

•About 2600 primary type specimens (the name bearers for species).

•In addition to its fundamental systematics value, the collection underpins quarantine and border control decisions.

NZACbugs is the database containing information on specimens in NZAC and species present in New Zealand. Most data are in “legacy files”, and these are now being prepared for wider access (similar to specimen information in PDD).

Because of the large number of specimens in the collection, coverage is currently restricted to groups that are considered to be of special importance or have been recently revised, e.g., type specimens, weta, orchard leafrollers, and Fauna of New Zealand revisions.

There are currently more than 19000 records representing about 40000 specimens of 3000 species.

Parts of this information are available as Web documents (e.g., images of Lepidoptera and Hemiptera type specimens; genera of Coleoptera and Hymenoptera in NZAC; basic text listings of holdings).