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Costa Rica’s University Insects Museum is located inside the Agro-Alimentary Sciences Faculty at the Crops Protection Research Center (CIPROC in Spanish). The museum was founded in 1962 primarily for teaching and research purposes, as part of their academic activities and since then it has been accumulating important scientific collections developed as a result of specific research projects. To accomplish this task, the Insect Museum has established many contacts and
interacted with scientists from major worldwide research centers, which has facilitated the exchange of information on the diversity of insects in our country and the role they play in our ecosystem.
For being part of the Crop Protection Research Center, the Insects Museum is related to its academic infrastructure, as with the national agricultural sector, especially providing diagnostic services for species that are of economic interest for their plague status or biological regulator role.
Since its inception it created a space for the national and international community, with that purpose a showroom accessible to all visitors was built, where it’s permanently displayed the lush insect diversity in Costa Rica. It started with 58.935 specimens, now it has approximately one million collected through several research projects. For this process the museum has the support of over 100 international specialists. Collections are represented by the orders: Odonata (dragonflies), Hemiptera (bugs), Homoptera (cicadas), Coleoptera (beetles), Diptera (flies) and Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants). They are available as reference materials for technical professionals in this field as well as farmers and the general public.
Currently, the museum receives visits from schools and colleges to show the student population our biodiversity, and in some way to guide students to a possible career specialty. It also has a showroom where samples of insects are concentrated with their corresponding explanatory sheets, parallel to this a narrator. The main objective sought by the Insect Museum is that visitors become aware of Costa Rica’s biodiversity and also learn the importance and benefits of insects in our environment.
Address: University of Costa Rica, district: San Pedro, canton: Montes de Oca, province: San Jose, Costa Rica. Zone postal code: 11501.
GPS Coordinates of the University of Costa Rica: 9.935081,-84.051364 (9°56’06.29″N, 84°03’04.91″W)
Schedule: from Monday-Friday 1 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.
Phone: +506 2207-5318
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