Scale Insect Collection (Insecta: Hemiptera: Coccoidea)
Dr. Tatjana Masten Milek donated the Scale Insect Collection (Insecta: Hemiptera: Coccoidea) to the Croatian Natural History Museum in 2009. The collection consists of 72 museum objects in the form of permanent microscope slides of scale insects.
The collection was established through faunistic research on scale insects conducted throughout Croatia, encompassing all 21 counties and 256 different localities during the period 2005–2007. Through visual inspection, 709 samples of plant material were collected, from which 1,804 permanent microscope slides of scale insects were prepared.
A total of 72 different species of scale insects were identified on 212 host plant species belonging to 80 plant families. During the three-year research project, 21 scale insect species were recorded for the first time in Croatia. Material representing 72 different species was subsequently donated to the Croatian Natural History Museum.
The collection has been comprehensively processed from both museological and scientific perspectives and was the subject of the doctoral dissertation by Dr. Tatjana Masten Milek, entitled Fauna of Scale Insects (Coccoidea) in the Republic of Croatia (2007, doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Agriculture, Osijek).
Collection Curator: Iva Mihoci
