Lepidoptera

Overview

Lepidoptera groups 36 collection units from the Lepidoptera section within the LS Insects division (Life Sciences), covering an estimated 13,893,635 individual items held across 13,980,734 curatorial/storage units. Material is predominantly whole organisms (24 of 36 collection units), whole or partial organism (8 of 36 collection units), and paper (2 of 36 collection units). Preservation is mainly dry pinned, microscope slide, and undefined. Named taxa represented in this product include Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea, Macrolepidoptera, Microlepidoptera, and Pyraloidea, among others.

Value

Curatorial assessment rates this product highly on Strategy/mission/research, Significance by comparison, and Development potential (avg. 4.7/5 across its top three scored dimensions), indicating it is well positioned for external licensing relative to other NHM holdings. Its breadth and depth of coverage make it suitable as a comprehensive reference dataset rather than a niche sample. This material already shows above-average usage/demand signals internally, suggesting a receptive external market.

Use Cases

1. training data for computer-vision species-identification and biodiversity-monitoring models
2. high-resolution specimen imagery for scientific illustration, publishing, and natural-history media
3. reference datasets for evolutionary biology, morphometrics, and comparative anatomy research
4. content for natural-history apps, citizen-science platforms, and museum digital exhibits
5. academic and institutional research licensing (biodiversity, systematics, and comparative studies)
6. comparative research, and as a dataset that is distinctive relative to equivalent holdings at other institutions