Dazzling dragonflies, spiny stick insects, jumping beetles - insects are the most species-rich group of animals on earth. But they are highly endangered. The travelling exhibition arouses fascination for the diversity of insects, but also shows how endangered they are and how we can protect them.
"Multifaceted Insects - Diversity I Endangerment I Protection" has been touring Germany in two versions since March 2022 and can be seen at a total of 20 locations. The travelling exhibition of the NORe network was developed as part of the "ProInsekt" project and funded by the Federal Programme on Biological Diversity by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation with funds from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU).
You can currently visit the travelling exhibition here:
Waldhaus Freiburg
7 October 2024 until 15 June 2025
Leipzig Natural History Museum
24 October 2024 to 18 May 2025
Zoological Museum. © LIB, Philipp Reiss
colours, shapes and structures come to light. © LIB, Philipp Reiss
The exhibition and research project
The project, which was initiated by NORe e. V., an association of natural history museums in the North and Baltic Sea region on the subject of "insect mortality", includes not only the travelling exhibition "Multifaceted Insects" but also an accompanying book of the same name published by Haupt Verlag.
The project was prompted by the findings of the Entomological Association Krefeld from 2017: "More than 75 per cent of the biomass of flying insects has disappeared from nature reserves in Germany within 27 years," was one of their key statements. Following its publication, the issue of insect mortality attracted a great deal of attention from the general public.
In the same year, eight natural history museums of NORe e.V. began planning and research that would later lead to the "ProInsekt" project. Coordinated from the Hamburg site of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), both the expertise and the collection data of all partner museums were incorporated into the project.
Researchers from Bremen, Lübeck and Braunschweig compiled data on wild bees; data on butterflies came from Waren (Müritz) and Bremen; Rostock and Braunschweig worked on various groups of beetles; researchers from Hamburg provided data on caddisflies and grasshoppers; and data on dragonflies was obtained from Braunschweig. All of these concrete findings underpin the content of the project, which was also compiled by citizen scientists, student assistants and committed nature lovers.
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