The hoverfly collection (Diptera, Syrphidae) of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) at Nairobi (Kenya)

Apart from the National Museums of Kenya, The entomology collection of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology is the largest collection of Kenyan insects held in African institutions, and possibly in the world. The collection is housed in the Biosystematics Unit of ICIPE. . Intensive collecting over the past past 20 years has increased holdings substantially. Recently, a project was begun to database the entire collection. To date over 20,000 specimens have been processed and we estimate that the total collection presently surpasses 100,000 specimens. The collection’s geographic focus is Kenya with additional Afrotropical material. The taxon dimension of the collection is primarily Diptera, Hymenoptera, Coleoptera and Hemiptera/Homoptera and the geographic dimension of those groups is predominantly from Kenya. The collection is an actively developing one and some of the research on the collection includes the PINDIP (Pollinator Information Network for Two-Winged Insects) (link to: https://www.pindip.org/) project. Taxonomic research on taxa from the collections’ Diptera and Hymenoptera holdings has produced many publications over the past 20 years.