The Annual Exhibition (along with the Members Day at Oxford in March) is one of the two most important events in the BENHS calendar. Along with regular attendees, a special invitation is offered to new and student members and to long-standing members who have never previously attended, to join us for the 2025 exhibition. Non-members are also very welcome to attend.

Saturday 1st November 2025

11.00am until 4.00pm

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, London WC1R 4RL

The Exhibition is an opportunity to meet other members of BENHS and its affiliated societies whilst perusing significant insect voucher specimens, photographs and posters. The BENHS membership encompasses and welcomes entomological novices right through to the nation’s top experts in particular insect groups. Its affiliated societies specialise in flies, beetles, plant galls, spiders, millipedes, centipedes, woodlice, bees, wasps, ants and earthworms!

As such, the informal atmosphere of the Exhibition is a great place to share experiences and a shared fascination for insects. For those who would like to develop a professional career in entomology or to take an amateur interest further, it can be a very valuable and productive experience.

Specialist entomology book dealers (Pemberley Books and Atropos Books) will be in attendance, stocking the latest volumes to be published, alongside the BENHS stall where you can purchase our own publications at the members’ reduced prices. The Amateur Entomologists’ Society will also be in attendance.

Getting to the Exhibition

The Exhibition is held at Conway Hall in central London, to facilitate easy access on public transport and just a 5-minute walk from Holborn Underground Station (Central and Piccadilly Lines).

There is a café on site for light refreshments and sandwich lunches.

Contributing to the Exhibition

The success of the Exhibition depends to a large extent on BENHS members bringing along specimens, photographs and posters to display to the other attendees. Consequently, please do consider not only attending but bringing along an exhibit, no matter how small. Exhibits take the form of preserved specimens which may be of scientific interest or reflect a personal interest, or perhaps consider ecological, local or historical themes. A table will be set aside for the exhibition of unidentified specimens and although identification cannot be guaranteed, many members are always happy to offer advice and assistance on such specimens.

Other exhibits can be printed-off photographs of living insects and we particularly encourage the presentations of posters demonstrating specific studies. Interesting entomological equipment, artwork, literature and trivia also make good exhibits. Live invertebrates may be exhibited where appropriate.

It would be helpful if exhibits can be prepared reflecting the following categories so they can be grouped appropriately with other similar material on the labelled tables in the Hall.

• British Butterflies
• British Moths – macros
• British Moths – micros
• Foreign Lepidoptera including the Channel Islands
• Coleoptera
• Diptera
• Hemiptera
• Hymenoptera
• Other Orders
• Unidentified specimens

When you arrive at the Conway Hall please register your exhibit at the signing-in table and provide a short descriptive note about it including:

• Your name, postal and/or e-mail addresses on all sheets of information.
• An indication of the significance of what is being exhibited, why it is interesting and what exactly it is.
• For specimens, give the locality (including the county), date of capture (in the following format: 22.iii.2021), capture method (g., at light. Where possible also give the grid reference and the vice-county name and number.
• Use current scientific names; as well as italicizing or underlining these, please also give the family name and authority. (Please do the same for any foodplants cited if possible.)
• For British Lepidoptera, please also provide the current checklist number as given in ‘Checklist of the Lepidoptera of the British Isles (2^nd Edition)’ (Agassiz et al., 2024); these numbers are available widely online.
• Please provide separate notes for each submission under the category headings above even if located in the same display case.

Information provided (except contact details) will be used when publishing the exhibition report. Please contact BENHS Editor Mike Wilson if you have any queries about this. Copies of previous exhibition reports can be found in various issues of the journal should you be interested in format and content.

As a responsible Society promoting the study and the conservation of insects please note:

Series of specimens of threatened, scarce or reintroduced insects will not be welcome at Conway Hall. The Code for Insect Collecting, endorsed by the BENHS, suggests that a pair of specimens of such species is sufficient. Similarly, long series of any insect taken from a single locality will not be welcome unless legitimate extenuating circumstances (e.g., an approved and/or licensed, scientific study) are supplied to the BENHS Council in advance. Any specimens associated with the commercial trade in insects will also not be welcome.

Marsh Awards

A very important part of the day will be the presentation of the Marsh Awards for Entomology 2025.  BENHS recommends to the Marsh Charitable Trust each year entomologists, amateur or professional, to be honoured in this way. The presentation will take place at 1.00pm and your support in congratulating this year’s winners at that time would be most appreciated.

Publication and Prizes!

During the day, all the exhibits will be viewed by appointed experts from BENHS who will select specimens and photographs to be photographed and published in the Journal of British Entomology & Natural History as part of the report on the Exhibition. The written description of the exhibit provided by the exhibitor and as described above will also be referenced.

All exhibits will also be reviewed by the exhibition organisers and awards (book tokens provided by Pemberley Books, Atropos Books and BENHS) presented to the best specimen, photograph and poster displays and announced on the day.