An event that took place just over 40 years ago had a major impact on the fate of the Peale Collection. In 1963 entomologists at the Academy of Natural Sciences negotiated an exchange with their counterparts at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. By the mid-20th Century, the Academy's Entomology Collection had become a major world resource for the study of Orthoptera systematics and the extensive Old World holdings of Orthoptera from the Carnegie Museum (particularly rich in African material) were transferred from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. In exchange, the vast majority of the Academy's general Lepidoptera collection was transferred to the Carnegie. (this exchange apparently excluded recognized primary types, the contents of Peale's famous "book boxes" and several very important collections of "Microlepidoptera"). At this time, significant numbers of Peale Collection specimens were interspersed with other material in the Academy's main Lepidoptera collection (these may have been specimens that were never stored in "book boxes", or they may have been parts of Peale's collection that had not yet been sealed into boxes at the time of his death. It seems likely that the Academy's curators did not realize just how many Peale Collection specimens had found there way into the main collection, and many of these Peale specimens were transferred to Pittsburgh in 1963. Some still remain in the main Lepidoptera collection at the Academy of Natural Sciences. The presence of part of the Peale Collection at the Carnegie Museum was discovered during the course of the Peale Project and (with the aid of colleagues at the Carnegie*) we are now locating, cataloging and photographing a significant subset of the Peale collection that migrated to western PA back in 1963!!

*see acknowledgments