Natural History Collections

A.D. Pickett Entomology Museum

The A.D. Pickett Entomological Museum is currently housed in room C-112 of Cox Institute and consists of three separate collections: the main dry collection, a smaller teaching collection and a wet collection.

Dry collection

The dry collection contains 31,067 identified specimens, representing 1,485 species, covering the major insect orders of North America and more than 12,000 computer records, each covering 39 different fields of information.

Though the majority of insects were collected in the Maritime Provinces, some of the specimens are from as far away as South America and Britain.

Most of the specimens in this collection are pinned adults, preserved solely by air-drying.

Wet collection

The wet collection is an array more than 500 of soft-bodied insects and related invertebrates such as spiders and mites at various life stages and samples of pest damage preserved in 70 percent alcohol.

Our computer records are in accordance with those currently used by the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN).

Teaching collection

The teaching collection is maintained for the sole purpose of laboratory instruction.

It allows the students to become familiar with the major families of insects within the main orders while providing experience in proper handling of fragile pinned insects.

A.E. Roland Herbarium

The A. E. Roland Herbarium is maintained by the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Cox Institute on Agricultural Campus in Truro.

The Roland Herbarium houses a number of specialized collections totalling more than 13,000 specimens.

Our reference collection is used in the identification and verification of unknown plant samples for both the scientific community and the general public.

Along with our other teaching collections we also have a quick reference collection, which we use to help train academics and other professionals for their work in the Green Industry.