The British and Irish Coleoptera Collection comprises the records of all pinned specimens from the families Carabidae (ground beetles), Geotrupidae (earth-boring dung beetles), Lucanidae (stag beetles) and Silphidae (burying beetles), as of September 2026.

Each specimen record has been published with either an image capturing both the specimen and its associated labels or with six standard images capturing the dorsal habitus, lateral habitus and four angled views of the specimen labels. An inventory record was created with a unique identifier (Data Matrix barcode) and taxon information. Some specimens will have additional images capturing the reverse side of labels.

The data resource generated by the project is available using the link. Please search for the relevant taxa as this dataset is part of a project covering a range of families.

This collection contains specimens dating from the mid-1800s to the present day, and includes material collected by prominent British and Irish Coleopterists including Lionel Bonaparte-Wyse, George Champion, Hereward Dollman, Horace Donisthorpe, John Power and David Sharp.

This project was funded internally and by the Bloomberg Digital Acceleration Project.