Irapuato, Gto., September 25, 2019.- The Department of Agronomy of the University of Guanajuato (UG) holds about 28 thousand specimens that are part of the Entomological Collection "Leopoldo Tinoco Corona" which is in the Irapuato-Salamanca Campus.

This collection is registered with the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) as a reference scientific collection, is considered as part of the UG's cultural heritage assets and functions as a Phytosanitary Diagnostic Laboratory.

The person responsible for the process of identification and taxonomic arrangement, Dr. Manuel Darío Salas Araiza, commented in interview that the number of copies increases with the collections that each student of the subject of Entomology must deliver at the end of the semester as acquired learning product. The insects are properly labeled and preserved, dry mounted on entomological pins in Cornell type boxes.

He detailed that this collection holds the type specimen of Conotrachelus copalensis Salas y Romero 2012 which was discovered and classified by the university's fellow full-time professor.

Dr Salas Araiza explained that "scientific collections must be dynamic" so this compilation exchanges material with other institutions such as the Institute of Phytosanitary Of the College of Postgraduates in Agricultural Sciences (Buprestidae and Tachinidae), with independent collectors from Spain (Lepidoptera), with the National Polytechnic Institute in Oaxaca (Braconidae and Cicadae), who have been given material to make revisions of the group and have also been received to increase the collection's acquis.

This dynamic process, he adds, includes journal publications with strict arbitration and disclosure conferences.

It is important to mention that, in addition to Dr. Manuel Darío Salas, Arturo Arévalo Centeno collaborates in the care and maintenance of the collection.

The collection in numbers

It has 4 thousand 660 records of 17 orders, 148 families, 966 genera and 1 thousand 735 identified species of the insect class. 40 percent of the material collected is from the different crops of the Guanajuatense Bajío.

Hemiptera is the order that the largest number of families present in the collection with 33, Coleoptera with 31 and Lepidoptera contains 27 families. The family Curculionidae is represented by 247 species of 139 genera and is the largest.

The collection also has a collection of 1,600 scientific articles related to the taxonomy of the insect class. The 4 thousand 660 records are duly stored in a database that is handled with the Paradox program.

Some copies of this collection may soon be appreciated in the Museum of the University of Guanajuato (MUG).

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