USNM Leaf Chafer (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Rutelinae) Collection    
J. Alexander Harman (USDA Summer Intern) places the identified Leaf Chafers in neat rows and adds a label to each box.
The metallic leaf chafer collection at the National Museum is one of the most comprehensive, diverse, and authoritatively identified collections of these beetles in the world. It includes over 200 drawers of specimens, all of which were curated in 1997 by scarab specialist Mary Liz Jameson (Univ. of Nebraska State Museum). Undetermined specimens were identified by Dr. Jameson, labeled, and incorporated into the collection with the assistance of Alexander Harman, shown (USDA Student Intern).


The collection holds type material of over 200 species. In addition to type material, the collection includes specimens identified by taxonomists such as Henry Walter Bates, Gilbert Arrow, Georg Frey, Friedrich Ohaus, Thomas Casey, Henry F. Wickham, Lawrence Saylor, and Robert Potts. The USNM has the largest holdings in North America of Friedrich Ohaus material, the last systematist to monograph the world Rutelinae in the early 1900s.



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Comments or suggestions? Contact Natalia J. Vandenberg, project coordinator & web designer (email: nvandenb@sel.barc.usda.gov);
Nancy Adams, curator in-charge of Scarabaeidae (email: adams.nancy@nmnh.si.edu) or
Mary Liz Jameson, ruteline specialist (email: mjameson@unlinfo.unl.edu).
Document created July 1997; updated October 1998; last updated June 2001.