The Diptera slide-collection compiled by Oskar Augustus Johannsen at Cornell University represents an important collection of imagines, many larvae and pupae from rearings, or parts there-of. There are some 1944 slides of mostly nematoceran taxa, especially Chironomidae and Sciaridae, but also preparations of Stratiomyiidae, Syrphidae, Ephydridae, and many other taxa. The collection contains mostly material from the Nearctic Region with an emphasis on the area around Ithaca, NY and New York state. Some specimens, however, were collected in South America, China, Europe, Kenya, or Sumatra. With the help of this database we want to make this important collection of Diptera more easily accessible to the Diptera community.
The database contains the Johannsen LOT-number, genus, species, author, family, locality, date of collection, collector, number of slides, and remarks. The easiest way to search for specific species is by species-name and author. The genera are listed according to Johannsen's identification and genus-species combinations will not always represent the most recent knowledge. The Catalog of the Diptera of America North of Mexico (Stone, A. et al. 1965) and The BioSystematic Database of World Diptera (http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov/Diptera/biosys.htm) were used to check spellings of names.
We use an open keyword search to look for terms in any one of the following fields: lot number, species, author, and family. Best search strategy would be to have any of the following information before hand (and in this order):
The database is also browsable, so don't worry if you're not sure what exactly you're looking for. If you are looking for type specimens described by O. A. Johannsen then please check the types database.
Please don't hesitate to contact us if you would like to know what parts of a specimen are mounted on the slide/s you are interested in borrowing. Please contact the curator James Liebherr (jkl5@cornell.edu) or the collections manager Rick Hoebeke (erh2@cornell.edu).