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Frederick Horniman amassed a world-wide collection of butterflies, most of which are still in the collection today. Among this material is one of the surviving 'type' specimens of Papilio hornimani, the 'Horniman Swallowtail'. Victorian Entomologist, W. L Distant describes and illustrates this new species in his paper in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1879. This butterfly is only known from the northern group of forests in Tanzania and the Chyulu Hills of southern Kenya and today, along with many other species, is under significant threat from continued deforestation and habitat fragmentation. Our specimen remains a valuable record of where and when the species was first discovered.
Our insect collection also contains specimens of other species that were named in honour of Frederick Horniman. These were mostly collected from West and East Africa and descriptions published during the latter half of the 19th century. These include a moth, Eusemia hornimani, (now Heraclia hornimani), a true bug, Tesserotoma hornimani and the 'Horniman beetle', Ceratorhina hornimani (now Cyprolais hornimanni), from Cameroon, described by naturalist and explorer Henry Walter Bates in 1877.
Parasitic Wasp Collection – Hymenoptera, Ichneumonidae
From 1992 to 2006, many thousands of specimens of parasitic wasps were added to the museum’s collection of British insects by Dr J P Brock. Most were collected from National Nature Reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the South East of England. This group is very poorly represented in collections in this country. The collection now includes several species with little or no representation in other museums. Some of these specimens are new to science and await designation as 'types'.
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