12 April 2026
Photo: NHM Wien | Chloe Potter
Special exhibition
It's not just the ravages of time
From 16 January to 12 April 2026, Gallery in Hall III
Museum beetles, moths, mould
It's bad enough in your own home, but a pest infestation in a museum is devastating. The travelling exhibition of the Natural History Museum Vienna, ‘It's not just the ravages of time’, presents museum and home pests and shows how today's pest control measures differ from those used in the past. It also presents new findings on the influence of climate change on pest problems in museums.
Pests in the Verkehrszentrum
Pest control is also an important issue for the collections at the Verkehrszentrum. One might not immediately expect it, but vehicles too can be affected by pests: whether it is wood-boring insects that infest wooden wagons, carriages, or vehicle bodies; textiles in automobiles or railway carriages that attract clothes moths; or mice that enter the halls through open doors and make themselves comfortable under or inside the exhibits. All of these are examples drawn from museum practice at the Verkehrszentrum.
An example from the Verkehrszentrum in 2007: The Mercedes Simplex (Hall II) is sealed in plastic wrap and treated with nitrogen to protect it from moths. Photo: Stephan Biebl
For this reason, we have been operating a regular pest-monitoring programme since 2007. The Verkehrszentrum is among the first museums to have adopted an environmentally friendly approach at an early stage by using beneficial insects – specifically parasitic wasps –to combat moths. These microscopic insects – less than 1 mm in length – search for and find moth eggs and lay their own eggs inside them. In this way, they prevent the moths from reproducing. The parasitic wasps die and decompose once no further moth eggs are present.
This method was originally developed for plant protection and adapted for new purposes—and can, for example, also be used at home against clothes moths or food moths. It is sustainable and environmentally friendly, entirely without chemicals or material residues that could harm the environment or the exhibits. At the Verkehrszentrum, it was tested over several years in a long-term trial.
In cases of severe pest infestation, fumigation – depending on the type of pest identified – has also been and continues to be used, for example with environmentally friendly gases.
A travelling exhibition by the Naturhistorischen Museums Wien (NHM Wien)
