History
The University of Georgia Collection of
Arthropods began in 1936 with the construction of a wooden Minnesota-style
specimen case. In 1965, much of the historically significant P.W. Fattig
Insect Collection was transferred to the UGCA, forming the core of a research
collection. Dr Kenneth Knight served briefly as the first curator from
1966 to 1968. At the end of his curatorship, the Collection occupied eleven
wooden cases. In 1968, Dr Thomas Atyeo became Curator. During
the next thirty years, the Collection grew to approximately 650,000 insect
specimens. In 1985, the UGCA was moved from the Biological Sciences
Building to a new facility, the University of Georgia Museum of Natural
History. Dr Joe McHugh became the third curator of the Collection
in 1996.
Approximately five million mite specimens
were transferred from the UGCA to the Museum of Zoology at the University
of Michigan in 1999. This transfer included the entire Atyeo Feather
Mite Collection.