History - The Mississippi Entomological Museum (MEM) is located in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Mississippi State University near Starkville, MS. The MEM was formed in 1979, under the leadership of Dr. William H. Cross, to combine several private and institutional collections that were present in the state. The MEM initiated the Mississippi Arthropod Survey in 1982 and the Midsouth Arthropod Survey in 1990, with the latter emphasizing arthropods in unique and threatened habitats in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Current staff and museum associates include 18 researchers in Mississippi who are working on taxa in Araneae, Acarina, Plecoptera, Homoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, and Diptera.
Holdings - The research collection contains more than 1,000,000 pinned specimens, and more than 35,000 are being added annually. The MEM includes collections, beginning in the late 1800's, of H. E. Weed, Henry Dietrich, J. M. Langston, R. W. Harned, Gladys Hoke-Lobdell, E. W. Stafford, M. R. Smith, William H. Cross, Leon W. Hepner, Bryant Mather, and Charles Bryson. Exotic material includes taxa from Central and South America, the Seychelles, New Caledonia, and Fiji Islands. The MacDonald Collection, emphasizing Lepidoptera of Panama, is housed in the MEM. The museum also houses the Ross E. Hutchins collection of photographs, which are primarily of insects and other natural history subjects, and the James Solomon collection of wood damage.

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