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Flies

Spring 2005

Woodley collects, identifies, and preserves flies

From his office in the Smithsonian Institution’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory, Norm Woodley helps care for the world’s largest bug collection and identifies threatening pests before they get into the country.

A fly specialist and taxonomist, Woodley (’76 Entom.) is also a curator of the 40 million specimens housed primarily at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. He and his colleagues use the collection and their expertise to identify insects that have hitchhiked into the country on overseas cargo shipments. Federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service agents collect the bugs and larvae they find on goods that come in on ships and planes. … » More …