More than 700,000 specimens of insects and plants to be digitised to 'unlock' critical information

Detailed observations on more than 2,000 species of moths collected over a 50-year period are to be digitised alongside hundreds of thousands of other specimens in a multi-million project to allow scientists to “unlock” critical information held in Scotland’s national sciences collections.

A funding initiative from the Arts and Humanities Research Council will see Scotland receive more than £1.8m to digitise around 700,000 specimens of insects and plants over two years. The project in Scotland will see more than 250,000 insects from National Museums Scotland and 388,000 herbarium specimens from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh become digitally accessible to all.