This department was named 'Entomology' until 2004, an inappropriate name since it means "science of the insects". We decided to rename the department because the portion of non-insect specimens in the collection increased during the past few years as well as the importance of the work done in this area. We want to express this increase also through the name of the department.
The arthropod collections contain more than 3 million of specimens, amongst them over 2000 primary types and several thousands of other type specimens.
Each of the five sections is curated by a scientist and a technician. A varying number of guest scientists and students (nearly all of them from the University of Bonn) is working additionally in the sections.
The main focus of the collection is on primarily terrestrial arthropods, mainly from the Palaearctic, the Ethiopian and the Oriental region.
