The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Insect Collection houses approximately 4.5 million insect specimens actively used in scientific research around the world. One of the collection’s primary goals is to fully digitize all of its specimens and the data associated with each specimen. To date the collection has digitized and/or databased just over 300,000 specimens. All of this data is currently shared with multiple global data aggregators that make the digitized data available to researchers, scientists and the public worldwide.

Working on transcribing data from grasshopper specimens collected over the last century helps researchers to better understand species distributions, potential pest outbreaks (some acridids), make informed decisions on species conservation requirements and efforts, learn more about climate change and human impacts on specific ecosystems, and so much more. Grasshoppers in general provide food for many other organisms (including humans in many areas), and some species can be agricultural pests. Some current research that is being done using this collection include studying the population diversity, biogeography, and evolutionary history of acridids and studying the biodiversity, behavior, and warning coloration and defense mechanisms of pyrgomorphids.