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Press release The biggest butterfly collection in the world... ... resides now in Munich. Fusion of private butterfly museum of Thomas WITT with Bavarian State Collection for Zoology into public collection creates the joint collection in about 10 millions meticulously prepared butterflies, one-forth of which is in the possession of newly created Foundation. Butterflies from over the world, numerous rarities, which have been collected during adventurous expeditions to remote virgin forests and can not be appreciated in any more museum in the world, curiosities, grotesque and extreme beauty, all can be found in this outstanding collection. However, the value on this material lies far beyond simple admiration: archives of insects play an extremely important role in zoological research as data banks on evolution and ecology. The scientific study of species diversity is, first of all, based on “Type specimen”, which serves for describing species itself, being, so to speak, “a standard meter of this species”. Butterfly Collection in Munich has about 100.000 of such original specimens, third of which coming from the collection of Thomas WITT Foundation. All these zoological data on the diversity of the world is not closed by scientists of Bavarian State Collection for Zoology and Foundation of Thomas WITT. Through richly illustrated publications, as well as through digital Web-projects, this immense information pool is now open to wide public and scientific circles.