Above is Serban's current beetle collection (photos by Sandun Perera), totalling as at 1 January 2010 some 1500 pins (this is equivalent to about 2000 individual insects, since several insects on platform cards can be stacked on one pin - belonging to ca. 1000 species, and collected mostly in South Africa in 2008-2009). This is, alas, not Serban's first collection.

 

While in Romania, he put together (starting at the age of four) a collection of similar proportions (some 4000 individuals from 1000 species, mostly from Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey). This was donated in 1999 to the "Grigore Antipa" Museum of Natural History in Bucharest, and distributional data based on this collection were included in ten or so publications by the collector, Rodica Serafim, Melania Stan, and Sanda Maican.

 

Two earlier South African collections (1999-2004, totalling maybe 1000 individuals from 500 species) were sadly lost (one to fungus, one literally lost).