Image gallery for bees, wasps and other hymenoptera

Wild bees and other biting insects are highly endangered and, like many other insects, strongly affected by species decline. To be able to protect these animals, it is important to reliably identify them and gather further knowledge about the species.

With a new online image gallery of bees, wasps, ants and other hymenoptera, the Munich State Zoological Collection (SNSB-ZSM), the only one of its kind in the world, aims to contribute to better knowledge of species, including among the general public. The web gallery is intended not only to appeal to committed nature lovers, but also to researchers, in order to bring them closer to this group of insects and to enable species identification.

The project is one of several citizen science projects at the State Collection of Zoology (SNSB-ZSM). The image gallery is also an important addition to the projects to create a genetic library of life based on genetic identification sequences. So-called „DNA barcoding” has been carried out at the ZSM for many years as part of several large-scale projects.

See corresponding press release: Wild bee identification on the web: Munich entomologists launch online gallery for Hymenoptera