True Flies (Diptera) collection

Our Diptera collection is one of the largest in the UK and numbers over 130,000 specimens. It has undergone a period of rapid development during the last 20 years and has benefitted from a major re-housing project undertaken by Entomology volunteer Dr Richard Underwood.

British collections 

The British Diptera collections comprise around 60,000 specimens and provide excellent species coverage for many taxa including Larger Brachycera, Syrphidae and Mycetophilidae. We are keen to increase species representation particularly for Acalyptrate flies and other poorly represented groups.

The main contributors are:

N.L. Birkett 2,000 Chironomidae many with genitalia preps.
H. Britten Many thousands of specimens from all families, including much Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire material.
J.J. Collins Several hundred specimens collected from Oxfordshire in the 1930s.
R. Crossley Very good representation for Empidoidea amongst 7,500 specimens.
P.N. Crow Mainly Syrphidae from North Wales.
C.D. Day Mainly Dorset Diptera including Tachinidae.
W.J. Fordham A large collection of Yorkshire and NE England insects including Diptera. Many were destroyed during war-time bombing of the museum.
E.G. Hancock Mainly Tipulidae collected whilst working at the museum in the late 1960s and early1970s.
C.M. Jones Syrphids and Larger Brachycera from NW England and North Wales.
L.N. Kidd A nationally important Mycetophilidae collection and also NW material.
G.S. Kloet Approximately a thousand NW England specimens.
T.H. Mawdsley Mainly specimens collected during commissioned museum survey work in NW England and Wales.
J.H. Murgatroyd A major component of the museum’s collection.
R. Underwood Over 10,000 NW and British Diptera for almost all families.
M J Smart World collection (30 000 specimens)

Palaearctic collections 

A few thousand specimens from the Greek Islands of Chios and Lesvos collected by M.J. Taylor and M. Hull, including Types of asilids and syrphids.

World collections 

Dominated by the medically important groups in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine collection. These 30,000 specimens include material from Newstead, Evans, Patton, Austin and Neave.

There is also an extensive collection of 16,000 African flies, predominantly Tabanidae, collected by W.R Woof.

We recently acquired the internationally significant M.J. Smart collection of 30,000 World robberflies.

Collections are available Monday - Friday by prior appointment with Tony Hunter: 

Email: tony.hunter@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk