Meeting 1248 Minutes

Minutes from the 1248th Meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club

The 1248th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President Amine Kousba at 7:35pm on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Approx.15 members and guests attended w/ 8 additional members and guests on Zoom.

New business:
Scott Smyers announced plans for a Bioblitz on May 16 in Marlboro Vermont
Another one in September on the Cape, and possibly one at Wachusett
Amine drafted a letter about state insect, please fill the google form to show your support.

The March speaker was Crystal Maier, the curatorial associate of the MCZ. Her talk was entitled “Adventures in the Entomology Collections at the MCZ: from microscope slides to giant moths”

Crystal told us about her job managing the 8 million specimens in the entomology collection.
The main three components of her work are archiving, digitization, and research.
For archiving, she works to document the history of the collection and record new material as it comes in.

For digitization, all digitized specimens are available to the public on MCZbase. Less than 5% of the specimens are currently digitized so there are ongoing efforts for this.

She works frequently with researchers who are interested in looking at the specimens, receiving about 60 loan requests, 80 image requests, and hosting visitors 180 days of the year.

Thanks to Fin Maloney for taking notes