Bug Closet (UCFC) door --- entrance to collection and work areas. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

The Bug Closet itself is only 7 by 16 feet, yet accomodates over 40,000 pinned and labeled specimens as well as various research equipment. Here Stuart Fullerton, the Research Associate In Charge of Arthropod Collections, works on labeling some of the unsorted Hymenoptera specimens while an undergraduate assistant, Kevin King, adds newly labeled specimens into Cornell drawers in a cabinet. (1994/1995) [Click the image to see it at full size: 431 x 317 pixels.]

Phillip Russell and Fern Gattorno gear up to check the traps in the Maidencane Marsh. (circa 1999) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 300 pixels.]

Heather Neff, a honors student and volunteer, adds carabid beetles to our database. (circa 2000) [Click the image to see it at full size: 301 x 450 pixels.]

Boyd Blihovde, a graduate student, finishes tagging specimens in the herp collection. (circa 2000) Now with state of Florida Park System [Click the image to see it at full size: 301 x 450 pixels.]

Jason Cohen, a honors student and volunteer, adds fresh alcohol to our many vials of arthropods. (circa 2000) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 300 pixels.]

Linda Berlin, a graduate student, is our resident carpenter and lily lady. She's a great help! (circa 2000) Now instructor at Seminole Community College [Click the image to see it at full size: 301 x 450 pixels.]

Linda Berlin (circa 2001) Linda Berlin, the lily lady, a "forever" student at UCF. She is the master carpenter extraordinaire to the bug closet since its beginning, and currently on faculty at SCC. [Click the image to see it at full size: 300 x 450 pixels.]

Zach Prusak, a Biology Dept. graduate and President of the Friends of the Bug Closet, stands next to one of the many malaise traps he has run out on the Disney property. (circa 1996) Now Fire Manager for The Florida Nature Conservancy [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 300 pixels.]

Zach Prusak (circa 2004) our ant man, just after one of his better controlled burns!!! this is for those of you who could not see him next to the m. trap. [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 300 pixels.]

Phillip Russell, a graduate student, adds sorted Hymenoptera from our year long trapping project to our database. (circa 2000) Now USDA officer [Click the image to see it at full size: 301 x 450 pixels.]

Trevor Smith, an undergrad working in the Bug Closet, sorts our many boxes of Coleoptera. (circa 2000) Now PhD candidate at Univ Fla - Gainesville [Click the image to see it at full size: 301 x 450 pixels.]

Trevor Smith (circa 2000) just after finishing his study project - see habitat page - "Immediate Response of the Order Coleoptera to Prescribed Winter Burning" (also published in Y.E.S. Quarterly) [Click the image to see it at full size: 300 x 450 pixels.]

Fern Gattorno, an undergrad, helps Dr. Snelson organize the fish collection. (circa 2000) Now inspector for USDA in South Florida [Click the image to see it at full size: 301 x 450 pixels.]

Visiting from Athens, Georgia, Dr. Theresa Pitts-Singer lends a helping hand. [Click the image to see it at full size: 301 x 450 pixels.]

Dr. James Pitts - back of head. All we could get. He was too busy working on our gazillion mutillids while his wife, above, lounged. (circa 2001) [Click the image to see it at full size: 300 x 450 pixels.]

The infamous ROF loves to have his picture taken. He may be a curmudgeon at times but we love him dearly. [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 300 pixels.]

"Sometimes a cigar --------" Photo by Jon Longhurst, circa 2003. [Click the image to see it at full size: 432 x 283 pixels.]

"Our hero, defender of life, liberty, and the pursuit of bugs." The Research Associate In Charge of Arthropod Collections himself.Ê Photo by Jon Longhurst, circa 2003. [Click the image to see it at full size: 288 x 432 pixels.]

Kevin King displays some of the more beautiful specimens. Lepidoptera like these make up a small but colorful part of the collection. (1994/1995) [Click the image to see it at full size: 459 x 308 pixels.]

The Hymenoptera Collection: The core of the UCF Collection of Arthropods is the immensely varied selection of hymenoptera, which comprise over 52% of the Collection. Included is a specimen of Dryinus fullertoni Olmi, a wasp discovered on the UCF campus by the Bug Closet's own Stuart Fullerton. (1994/1995) [Click the image to see it at full size: 314 x 270 pixels.]

Sorting and Categorizing: With almost 45,000 specimens waiting to be added to the Collection, there is a tremendous amount of work to be done by the volunteers of the Bug Closet. Here, a volunteer uses the Collection's Reichart dissecting microscope to identify a specimen of Coleoptera. The Collection's light magnifiers and microscopes have contributed to its claim of more than 95% of specimens being identified to genus. (1994/1995) [Click the image to see it at full size: 316 x 350 pixels.]

Looking through the original Bug Closet and into the Museum Range portion of collection/work areas. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

Looking through the original Bug Closet and into the Museum Range portion of collection/work areas. We like clutter. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

View of the "bug closet"- UCFC (University of Central Florida Collecction of Arthropods) portion of the Musem Range: two scopes, "the other" computer, the CPD, and arachnological racks. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

Through the UCFC portion of Museum Range to shelves and compactors of the vertibrate liquid and skin collections. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

Outside door - more clutter! (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 330 pixels.]

John Westcott doing data entry of hymenoptera/coleoptera (Spring 2005). [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

Roxzelle Morris, a recent graduate and volunteer. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

Roxzelle Morris, a recent graduate and volunteer, filing library reprint. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 500 x 375 pixels.]

Charlie Rolsky, a graduating senior in high school in Scottsdale, Arizona. He has been running a malaise trap in his back yard for us for the last year. (2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 350 x 350 pixels.]

Sandor Kelly at play. (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 338 pixels.]

Sandor (Shawn) Kelly - coleopterist in training, potential grad student in waiting, and assistant to the research associate in charge of arthropod collections (i.e. associate flunkie). (Spring 2005) [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 364 pixels.]

Mike Ray (circa 2000) Volunteer for data entry. He has become the general all-around good scapegoat especially for inexplicable errors in the database even though he has not been here for some time. [Click the image to see it at full size: 300 x 450 pixels.]

Jon Longhurst and Lisa Roberts (circa 1994) These are two of the original bug closet crew helping in the setting up of the operations. Jon continues as the bug closet photographer - now a professional, and Lisa is currently working on being a full time mom!!!!. but still can paint with a mean polyurethane brush. Picture taken in office of director of the entomology dept. at the Florida Dept. of Agric. and Cons. Serv. - State Collection of Arthropods [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 300 pixels.]

Saba Akram buggin' out [Click the image to see it at full size: 300 x 450 pixels.]

Travis Sims (circa 2001) another "forever" student, through 2004. is our resident expert on odonata, and very good at spiders. brought our holdings of odonates up to snuff and "did" the arachnid collection of some 4, 000 vials. picture him standing up in the front of a "john boat" chasing a dragonfly. currently an environmental consultant [Click the image to see it at full size: 300 x 450 pixels.]

Dr. Frank Parker (circa 2002?), retired USDA Bee Lab, Logan Utah brought his own fresh caught and frozen food when he came to visit. [Click the image to see it at full size: 450 x 300 pixels.]

Dr. Frank Parker (circa 2002) spent a week and a half in the maelstrom of the closet working on all sorts of things. oh yeah, he even brought his own scope! [Click the image to see it at full size: 431 x 315 pixels.]

Dr. Lubomer Masner. (circa 2001) visitor from Canada Agriculture was here for a week and a half during the renovations working on proctotrupoids, platygastroids, ceraphronids, and other such things (almost 20,000 of them). And - you guessed it running pan traps! [Click the image to see it at full size: 300 x 450 pixels.]

Kevin Pitz (circa 2004) Ph.D. candidate in the lab of Dr. Mike Sharkey, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, visited us for more than a week in the winter of 2003-4 and brought our braconids to a subfamily taxa level (around 10,000 specimens). He took back the "Cenoncoelinae" (the subfamily he is revising) and discovered a new species of "Mendesellinae" which he has recently described and published. [Click the image to see it at full size: 378 x 300 pixels.]

Spring 2006: The Intrepid Trio. From left to right: Shawn Kelly, Dr. Richard Westcott, and Stuart Fullerton looking for buprestid beetles in the Ocala National Forest. Dr. Westcott (retired: Salem Oregon, Oregon Department of AG) was here working with grad student Shawn Kelly for 1.5 funn filled weeks of insecting burned trees, beating the woods for buprestids. and we got some doozies. [Click the image to see it at full size: 1200 x 1800 pixels.]

From left to right: Shawn Kelly, Stuart Fullerton, and Dr. Richard Westcott [Click the image to see it at full size: 1800 x 1200 pixels.]