History of the Hemiptera Section

The oldest parts of the collection of this section are those specimens wich were collected by Ritter Johann Baptist von Spix on his trip through South America in 1817 to 1820. This material was revised by M. Perty.

Parts of the bug collection were destroyed during the World War II. The section Hemiptera is  separately curated only since 1982. Dr. M. Baehr was in charge of the section from 1982 to 1995, since then Dr. K. Schönitzer is head of the section. The technical assistant was Mrs. I. Graber until 1996 and is Mrs. T. Kothe since 1997.

More recent parts of the section are the collections of F. Lughofer (1891 - 1974), H. H. Weber (1909-1988) and G. Seidenstücker (1912 - 1989). The collection of Seidenstücker contains about 90.000 (mainly determined) Heteroptera predominantly from central Europe and from Turkey.

Much material was collected by Dr. M. Baehr in Australia. 

During the last years a lot of insects were collected by the members of the staff in South America in the research station “Panguana” in the tropical lowland forest of Peru. Furthermore material from South East Asia (Taiwan, Borneo etc.) was received.

Further important new collections

1997: tropical cicada and Heteroptera collected by Dipl.-Ing. Heinrich Schaefer.

1997: Bavarian cicadas collected by Dr. Kurt Harz.

1999: Collection of Bavarian true bugs from Georg Necker with altogether about 13.000 determined and 16.000 determined Heteroptera.

Literature

Baehr, M.(1992) Die Sektion Rhynchota der Zoologischen Staatssammlung München. Spixiana Suppl. 17: 108-111.

Burmeister, E.-G. (1983) Vorläufige Erfassung einiger von J. B. v. Spix und C. F. Ph. v. Martius in Brasilien gesammelter Insektengruppen aus der Zoologischen Staatssammlung München, die von M. Perty bearbeitet wurden. Spixiana Suppl. 9: 265-281.

Heiss, E. In memoriam Gustav Seidenstücker, einem bedeutenden deutschen Entomologen (1912-1989). Nachr.Bl. bayer. Ent. 39: 65-70.

Kothe, T., G. Blazi & K. Schönitzer (2004): Katalog der Wanzen-Typen von Gustav Seidentücker (1912 - 1989) in der Zoologischen Staatssammlung München (Heteroptera). 61. Bericht der Naturforschenden Ges. Augsburg (219) 1-90.