Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) [India], June 26 (ANI): The country’s first Insect Museum at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), is set to be opened up to a global audience shortly through an online gateway.
Murugan Marimuthu, Incubant Head of the Department of Entomology at TNAU, told ANI that the online gateway is in its final stages of development. “Most likely in a month or so, sir. We are almost in the completion stage,” he said.
Tracing the department’s origins, Marimuthu explained that the institution has a history stretching back over a century. “Originally, the Madras Agricultural College was started during the imperial period, during the British rule. In 1906, the college was established in Coimbatore,” he said, adding that the Department of Agricultural Entomology itself was set up six years later. “By the year 1912, under the first government imperial entomologist, Dr. Fletcher, the Department of Agricultural Entomology was started by 1912,” he said, noting that the colonial government recognised the importance of insects to both farmers and the wider public even then. He added that the department subsequently expanded its academic offerings, introducing postgraduate education in 1959 and doctoral programmes by 1961.
As part of its road map to advance agricultural awareness, TNAU had envisaged the establishment of the Insect Museum, which carries a historical insect collection dating back to 1906. Spread across 6,000 square feet with seven thematic bays, the museum displays a wide range of insect specimens across its exhibit areas. Being the country’s first such museum, a first-day cover postal stamp was released to mark the occasion in 2018.
Marimuthu elaborated on the deep historical roots of the museum’s collection, noting that ecologically significant specimens collected during the founding years of the college were sent to the British Insect Museum for classification. “Thousands and thousands of type specimens were maintained at the centre for the benefit of the scientific community, not only for Indians, but also for the global scientific entomologists,” he said, adding that the department has since built on this legacy by maintaining century-old specimens that continue to be referenced by entomologists worldwide for taxonomic classification, particularly in responding to new pest invasions.
Insects, described by officials as among the most dominant, oldest and diverse forms of life on earth, function as prey, predator, pollinator and scavenger, forming integral components of every ecosystem while largely going unnoticed. Marimuthu was emphatic that public perception of insects needs to shift. “Generally the public feel that the insects are, you know, untouchables. It’s not so, because insects are our friends for the crop production,” he said, citing pollination as a critical example of their contribution. “The role of insects is 75 per cent. That means whichever the food we are eating today, it has been the work of the insects, especially honey bees and other kinds of bee insects,” he said, warning that “if we kill all the insects, within another five years, our food will be vanishing.”
He also addressed the role of pest management in farming, stressing that pesticide use should not be the default response to crop pests. “It is not mandated that we have to, in the first hand itself, we have to use the pesticides,” he said, explaining that the department instead promotes integrated pest management practices that rely on natural predators such as spiders and coccinellids, along with parasitoids, to control pest populations.
To build greater public awareness about the role of insects, the foundation stone for the TNAU Insect Museum was laid in 2014. The museum was subsequently constructed with contributions from the Tamil Nadu government and the Agri Business Consortium and Finance Committee, at a total cost of Rs 5 crore.
Dr. M. Shanthi, Director of the Centre for Plant Protection Studies at TNAU, also spoke about the museum’s mission, describing it as an effort to reframe public attitudes toward insects. “Now we are having the thought of insects… they are the pests or which are the causing damage to any organisms. So that is the thought about the insects by the human being,” she said. “But here we are projecting the insects as a bugs or kings. So they are the kings in the world. They are dominating in the world.”
Dr. Shanthi confirmed that the museum has been open to the public since 2019, with funding totalling around Rs 10 crore drawn from government, university and private sector sources. “We are now working for the online gateway… it will be shortly open, within one month,” she said, adding that the platform will operate on a payment basis to allow access for both global and Indian researchers, students and the general public.
The museum serves as a practical learning space for students, who study insects through both preserved and live specimens as well as visual displays. Farmers, meanwhile, are able to use the museum to identify pest damage symptoms and recognise the natural enemies of crops. Building the collection was a large collaborative effort, with specimens gathered from 55 locations across Tamil Nadu and other parts of the country. Around 1,14,000 insects were collected, largely through fieldwork conducted during both daytime and nighttime using light traps, with contributions of specimens and images from students, research fellows, alumni and entomologists.
Visitors to the museum are first greeted at the lobby by its central theme, “Bugs Are Kings,” anchored by an intricate display of insects carved onto a single log of Albizia lebbeck, said to be the only tree species in the world on which all major insect groups can be found together. The lobby display also draws on insect illustrations sourced from Edward Donovan’s “Insects of East Indies,” the first book published in 1800 depicting insects native to India.
Inside, the museum’s “Wonderland of Insects” section showcases the diversity of Indian insect fauna, with beetles making up 38 per cent of the display, followed by moths and butterflies, and wasps and bees accounting for 16 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. Shanthi noted that the collection spans more than 10,000 insects, including beneficial, harmful and neutral species alike, and underlined their ecological importance beyond pollination. “It is acting as a decomposer. So if there is no insects, there is no possibility for decomposing any waste. So it is helping the world for having the food security and also to lead a happy life,” she said. The facility is also equipped with an Insect Discovery Hall, a section on social insects, and an auditorium with a seating capacity of 150 that screens insect-related documentaries.
Shanthi extended an open invitation to visitors of all backgrounds to experience the museum firsthand. “I invite all the visitors, that is the global level and also Indian different state level to visit our insect museum to explore the magnificent collection of insects,” she said. “It is not only collection, it will be an interesting feature to have the knowledge on the insects.”
On the broader need to protect insect populations for a sustainable future, officials from the Department of Agricultural Entomology said the museum, being the only one of its kind at the national level, is designed to serve students, researchers, farmers and the general public alike by helping them identify both crop pests and the natural enemies that keep such pests in check. The officials underlined the museum’s core message, declaring that “Insects are Friends of Farmers.” (ANI)
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