Massive Personal Collection of Spiders Given to Museum

A long-time professor at UW-Oshkosh spent much of his life trying to collect as many spiders as he could.

Now, his massive collection is in UW-Green Bay's Richter Museum.

The spider collection is from Dr. Jack Kaspar.

Before he passed away last December he agreed to Donate his collection to the museum.

Wisconsin's 400-plus spider species are all represented, as are thousands of spiders from around the world.

They're stored in ethanol to keep them fresh and flexible.

The spiders will be used for research and teaching.

"As far as spiders go, we now have the largest collection. When we finish up, we have some more things coming in November, we'll have over 10,000 specimens," says Museum Curator Tom Erdman.

The spider collection is not normally open to the public, but some group tours can be arranged.