Division of Entomology was established in 1932. Dr. Boris Sergeevich Kuzin, a coleopterologist and specialist in the insect variation and microevolution, became its first head. He took this position by 1935 and was replaced by Anatoliy Nikolaevich Zhelokhovtsev, also a coleopterologist, who was heading the Division up to 1976. This long period was broken only in the years of the 2d World War when Dr. Zhelokhovtsev was at the front, and Nikolay Nikolaevich Plavilschchikov, also a coleopterologist and well-known popularizer of biological sciences, became temporarily the head of the Division. Besides, G.A. Kostylev studied wasps in the Division during several years before the War.

After the War, several talented young entomologists worked in the Division as its staff members or volunteers: O.L. Kryzhanovsky, D.V. Panfilov, G.A. Viktorov, G.A. Mazokhin-Porshnyakov etc. However, they soon left the Museum for quite successful academic carrier to become famous Soviet entomologists, and several women devoted to the collections became members of the Division: L.V. Zimina (dipterologist), S.I. Keleinikova (coleopterologist), Z.F. Chuvakhina and R.A. Kamenskaya (both technical assistants); Dr. E.M. Antonova joined them a few years later.
In the 1970s, a new generation of entomologists came to the Museum: A.I. Shatalkin (dipterologist and head of the Division in 1976-1992), A.V. Sviridov (butterflies), and then A.L. Ozerov (dipterologist), A.V. Antropov (wasps), G.Yu. Lyubarsky and N.B. Nikitsky (both working with the beetle taxonomy). Dr. V.A. Alekseev, a member of Division of Exhibitions, was working with collection of parasitic hymenopterans in 1976-1982, and a student and then postgraduate M.A. Bukhvalova curated orthopterans.
Dr. Ozerov took the head position in the Division in 1992.