Forest Entomological Collection
© TUD Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections Display case relating to the goat moth (Cossus cossus) as a tree pest
The collections originating from Dresden’s neighboring Tharandt were primarily put together for teaching purposes and are still used today. They comprise a variety of insect orders, liquid preparations of plant parts and pieces of wood and bark with distinctive traces of feeding. The professors themselves (Prof. Heinrich Prell, Prof. Heinrich Nitsche) and their colleagues abroad (Gustav Henschel from Vienna) served as collectors in this project. The collection was profoundly expanded when it was moved from Eberswalde to Tharandt under the leadership of Prof. Gäbler after the closure of the Faculty of Forestry at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 1962. The most valuable constituent is the beetle collection compiled by Otto Fehse (Thale, 1882–1953), which was procured by the Institute for Forest Entomology in 1954 and includes about 39,000 specimens of over 4,300 species. These were treated and placed into cases. Arranging them according to the Winkler catalog and including a log of each case’s contents enabled easy access for comparing species.
There are also other collections comprising Diptera (flies – likely from G. Morge), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, bees, ants), Heteroptera (true bugs – mainly from H. Gäbler and K.H.C. Jordan) and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies – H. Gäbler and H. Schiemenz). The forest entomology collection also comprises smaller regional collections from the “Müritzhof” educational facility and from the Tharandt region (F. Kost, W. Bassus) as well as numerous objects of study for forestry education.
Department of Forest Sciences, Institute of Silviculture and Forest Protection
Hauptgebäude, Pienner Str. 8, Tharandt
Franziska Höhn
+49 351 463 31623
franziska.hoehn@tu-dresden.de