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National Museum of Natural History

An orange-colored fly, as seen from above and below

Get to Know the Scientist Studying How Parasitic Flies Stomach Bat Blood

Microbiologist Kelly Speer uses museum specimens to study blood-feeding insects and their mammalian hosts

The Smithsonian’s National Mosquito Collection has about 1.9 million specimens from around the world that researchers use to study diseases like malaria. (Paul Fetters for the Smithsonian)

Get to Know the Scientist in Charge of Smithsonian’s 1.9 Million Mosquitoes

We caught up with Dr. Yvonne Linton to talk about what it’s like managing the Smithsonian's almost 2 million mosquito specimens and trying to determine ones are most dangerous to people.

A drawer of pinned adult mosquitoes from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s National Mosquito Collection. The specimens shown here were digitized recently. Meaning, their bionomic information is databased and individual specimens are cataloged. (David Pecor, WBRU)

Can Scientists Stop One of the World's Deadliest Mosquitoes?

The National Mosquito Collection provides invaluable insight into how species behave and how scientists can detect them before they spread disease.

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