127-year-old hoverfly threatened by extinction launches project to track biodiversity changes

The Pine hoverfly (Blera fallax), which entered the collection of the National Museum of Scotland in 1899 is among 250,000 insects from the museum and 388,000 herbarium species from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), which will become digitally accessible to all.

The Distributed System of Scientific Collections UK (DisscoUK) project aims to create approximately 700,000 digital records of specimens held in Scotland’s natural science collections over two years.

The hoverfly became critically endangered in Scotland and almost disappeared from the wild by 2000 before successful efforts were made to reintroduce it in the Cairngorms National Park.

Another species to be documented early in the project by RBGE is Scots pine, otherwise known as “pinus sylvestris” of the Caledonian Forest, which is a key species for the habitat of the pine hoverfly, with the insects using rot holes in the trees for the development of their larvae. The specimen, held in the herbarium of the RBGE, which holds a world-renowned collection of preserved specimens of the plant and fungal kingdoms used by researchers from around the world, was collected in Aviemore in 1975.

Dr Vladimir Blagoderov, principal curator of invertebrates at National Museums Scotland, said: “It's very pleasing to have started work on this important work digitally documenting and making accessible this really useful and valuable information about Scotland's natural environment and how it has changed and will continue to change over time."

Dissco UK s a £155 million, 10-year national programme to digitise and connect the UK's natural science collections. The programme is funded through the UKRI Infrastructure Fund and delivered by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council in partnership with the Natural History Museum and over 100 partners across the UK.

In addition to material from the Scottish national collections at RGBE and NMS, the project will also see digital records created for 85,000 plant specimens held by Glasgow Life, 1,200 insects from The Hunterian, 2,400 specimens from Shetland Museum & Archives including plants, algae and fungi as well as 1400 plant, lichen and moss specimens from The James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen.

Among the significant collections to be digitised is the Pelham-Clinton moth collection held at the National Museums Collection Centre in Edinburgh. Edward Pelham-Clinton, who was deputy keeper of the then-Royal Scottish Museum for 20 years until 1980, spent decades travelling Britain and Ireland, collecting over 35,000 moths and butterflies. He filled 64 meticulous field diaries with observations on 2,169 species, building what is believed to be the most detailed personal record of British moths ever compiled.

It is hoped that future phases will encompass more of the collections of existing participants and also widen in scope to include more of Scotland’s natural science collecting institutions.