Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the world's largest collection of wasp nests with James M. Carpenter, entomologist and curator in the Museum's Division of Invertebrate Zoology. The Museum's Hymenoptera collection includes more than 1,200 paper nests made by social wasps, as well as the 7.5 million-specimen gall wasp collection donated to the Museum in 1958 by the widow of Alfred C. Kinsey.
The primary focus of Dr. Carpenter's work is the wasp family Vespidae, a group of nearly 5,000 described species that encompasses the most sophisticated societies among the social wasps. Learn more about the Museum’s wasp collection here.