Atlas Beetle from the restored collection. © Natural History Museum

A biologist’s treasure trove of beetles and bugs has been rediscovered in an attic. Alfred Russel Wallace, who co-discovered the theory of evolution, collected the bugs in the 1850s and 1860s while exploring south-east Asia.

More than 150 years later, Wallace’s grandson, Richard, came across the collection in his attic and has donated it to the Natural History Museum.

Wallace collected more than 120,660 specimens over a period of eight years including more than a thousand new species that had previously been undiscovered.

By 1870 he had sold most of his collections to help support his family but he kept a selection of his most treasured items including an unnervingly large longhorn beetle – Batocera Wallacei.

Several of the actual specimens illustrated in The Malay Archipelago, Wallace’s famous travel book that is still in print today, were also in the collection.

Some of the specimens after restoration. © Natural History Museum

The rediscovered cache of creepy crawlies consists of 219 beetles, bugs and stick insects, many of which had been damaged by other insect pests while they lay in their hiding place.

The Natural History Museum’s beetle expert was fortunately on hand to restore them. Dr George Beccaloni spent more than 40 painstaking hours working on the collection and says they are now around 90 per cent intact.

“It was an emotional and rewarding experience for me to restore these forgotten specimens,” said Dr Beccaloni, “Considering how fragile they are I am very surprised they survived at all.”

“Wallace was not only one of the world’s greatest biologists, but also one of the most prolific collectors of natural history specimens of all time,” he added.

Alfred Russel Wallace was one of history’s most important explorers, naturalists, geographers and anthropologists.

Alfred Russel Wallace in 1888. © Natural History Museum

He came up with the theory of evolution by natural selection at the same time as his more famous contemporary, Charles Darwin.

The pair co-wrote two papers on the subject, which they presented to the Linnean Society the year before Darwin’s milestone work, On the Origin of Species.

During his lifetime Wallace explored South America and south-east Asia, collecting examples of birds, butterflies and bugs.

“It is incredible that these historically important specimens have now been rediscovered,” said Dr Beccaloni, “This collection is a major acquisition for the Natural History Museum and it will be of considerable interest to the many people fascinated by this great man.”

The Natural History Museum is now working on a digital resource of 200 Wallace artefacts, which it plans to launch in July 2006.