Inside Ecuador's LOUNAZ Museum: How 20,000 Invertebrates Are Rewriting

In Loja, southern Ecuador, the Museum of Zoology at the Universidad Nacional de Loja—known as LOUNAZ—has built a rapidly expanding invertebrate collection that’s reshaping how biodiversity is documented in the region. Founded in 2020 for its invertebrate work, and growing within four years, the collection has assembled more than 20,000 specimens, according to a study in Natural History Collections and Museomics. The article links its rise to a long-standing geographic imbalance: most inventories have focused on northern Ecuador around Quito and the northern Amazon. LOUNAZ obtained an official patent in 2019, created its invertebrate division in 2020 under curator Paucar-Cabrera, and expanded facilities in 2024.