Hayk Mirzayans Insect Museum offers training courses, and helps other scientific research centers in completion and maintenance of their insect collections. ITRD acts as the National Identification Service for governmental or non-governmental organizations, publishes various articles, reports, books, data banks and checklists of its holdings, and provides these information free of charge to all visitors. Hayk Mirzayans Insect Museum The Hayk Mirzayans Insect Museum (HMIM) is the largest insect collection in Iran with over 4 million insect specimens, including 20–25,000 local species, hundreds of primary types and paratypes, and a representative collection of exotic insects, especially tropical butterflies. In 1943, Iranian entomologist established a
Conservation and restoration of insect specimens This is done to minimize shriveling allowing the identifying characteristics to be preserved as true to life as possible. Hard-bodied insects may also be preserved temporarily in alcohol before pinning. Slides of very small insects are also kept as part of insect collections. The American Institute for Conservation (AIC) describes in their Code of Ethics the aspects of conservation to include: preventive conservation, examination, documentation, treatment, research and education. Each of these areas also apply to the conservation and restoration of insect specimens. Insect collections may suffer multiple types of degradation including fading colors from light exposure, mold growth from