Collections
Insects in the Hallway
Located in the second-floor hallway of Fernald Hall, the Insects in the Hallway display showcases the enormous diversity of insects to the public. A separate display shows a wide range of locally-collected Massachusetts species.
Read The Massachusetts Daily Collegian's article about the Fernald Hall insect collections.
Live Insect Zoo
The UMass Insect Zoo, maintained by the Fernald Club, is located in the second-floor hallway of Fernald Hall, opposite the Insects in the Hallway display. We keep a variety of live insects and other arthropods in the zoo for educational outreach, and also because they're lots of fun!
September 2023: The Insect Zoo currently has hissing and discoid cockroaches, desert beetles, mantids, harlequin flower beetles, a whipspider, an orb weaver spider, millipedes, and isopods. More new bugs coming soon!
Want to handle the live insects? Contact us at fernaldclubumass@gmail.com to set up an insect-handling session.
Insect Museum
The Insect Museum is UMass Amherst's scientific insect collection, comprising over 100,000 specimens across the insect orders. It includes both Amherst-area insects and exotic species from around the world, and features many historic specimens from the early 1900s.
Contact us at fernaldclubumass@gmail.com if you are interested in an educational viewing of the collection or want to learn more about it.
