RBINS Lepidoptera collection

The butterflies and moths subcollections constitute a grand part of the institute's entomology collection. They were initially classified in the suborders as Rhopalocera and Heterocera, respectively. More than 35,000 butterflies and moths specimen records are digitised, including around 1090 type specimens that are online findable through the RBINS Virtual Collections (https://virtualcollections.naturalsciences.be/virtual-collections/entomology/lepidoptera). Most of the georeferenced holotypes, paratypes and syntypes originate from Central Africa and Southeast Asia. Generally through expeditions in tropical regions, a vast amount of insect specimens used to be sampled and stored in museum cabinet drawers: many of those records are retrievable through the RBINS Entomology Collections webpages (https://collections.naturalsciences.be/ssh-entomo/collections). Baron Edmond de Sélys Longchamps belongs to the historically important collectors of butterflies and moths. Even Queen Elisabeth and her son Prince/King Leopold III of Belgium have notably contributed to the RBINS lepidoptera collection. More recent, eminent scientific contributions with reference material at RBINS originate from Belgian lepidopterists including Arsène Fouassin, Philippe Fastré and Thierry Bouyer. This Fastré collection largely contains Erebidae and Noctuidae from Central and South Asia. Diversely, this Bouyer collection is one of the largest worldwide and nearly complete Afrotropical Saturniidae collection.