The World’s Rarest Insects Can Be Found At A Unique Insect Museum In Turkey
The World’s Rarest Insects Can Be Found At A Unique Insect Museum In Turkey
The world is full of insect museums, but a particular museum located in Turkey is perhaps the most notable of all. More than fifty thousand insect specimens can be studied at Turkey’s Atatürk University Faculty of Agriculture in Erzurum. This museum may not house the largest number of insects, but there is a good reason as to why entomologists around the world visit Turkey’s museum more often than others. Virginia Tech’s insect specimen collection includes four hundred thousand different insect species. Although Virginia Tech’s entomology museum is home to hundreds of thousands of insects, most, if not all, of the insect specimens located there have already been described in scientific literature. However, most of the insects at the Turkish entomology museum have never been studied before. Some of the strangest looking insects in existence today can only be found within the country of Turkey.
There is an understandable reason as to why Turkey’s entomology museum is home to thousands of insect specimens that are completely unknown to science. Although the country of Turkey borders other countries, many experts consider Turkey to be an island where only the most exotic insects exist. Turkey is home to one hundred thousand different insects living in the wild. Since there are probably well over one million different insect species living in the world today, one hundred thousand insects may not sound like a lot. But the entire continent of Europe does not have an insect population as high as Turkeys. Of the fifty thousand different species that are currently stored in Turkey’s museum, only twenty thousand of them have been described by scientists. This leaves thirty thousand insect species that have yet to be studied. Some of the fifty thousand insects now stored at the museum came from countries other than Turkey. However, the majority of specimens are found only in Turkey and nowhere else. Turkey is a unique country in that its environment is more conducive to a wide variety of different forms of insect life when compared to neighboring countries. If you have ever wanted to discover an insect so that you could name it after yourself, then don’t bother with searching through your backyard; instead just visit Atatürk University in Turkey.
Would you be interested in visiting Atatürk University in Turkey in order to look at certain insects that have never been seen before by experts?