[1] His work has focused on insects in houses and stored foods, and especially the wintering and cold tolerance of certain arthropods.
[2] Sømme has been on several expeditions to the Antarctic, participated in field trips to Svalbard, and visited various other extreme places on Earth in his research on arthropods and cold tolerance.
[4] Sømme received his candidatus realium degree from the University of Oslo in 1958[5] with a thesis on insecticide resistance (DDT) in houseflies (Musca domestica).
After completing his degree, Sømme began working as a fellow at the Norwegian Plant Protection Office (Statens plantevern) in Ås.
[7] In 1970, Sømme changed his workplace from the Plant Protection Office to the University of Oslo, where he became a lecturer in entomology.
It was determined that the leaf beetle Chrysomela collaris has a supercooling point (minimum lethal temperature) at −40 °C (−40 °F) before the body fluid freezes and the animal dies.
At Finse, it was also discovered that the ground beetle Pelophila borealis can be completely frozen in ice over an extended period.
Since 1977, Sømme has participated in several research expeditions to the Antarctic,[1][3] where he studied arthropods (mites and springtails) on Bouvet Island and in Queen Maud Land.
The fauna there have the same survival mechanisms as Sømme had found earlier in Norway's high mountains at Finse.
In the Andes, Sømme found a grasshopper that was able to tolerate the large temperature fluctuation between day and night.
[8][9] Lauritz Sømme has made shorter trips to several places in the world to study arthropods' cold tolerance, including the Atlas Mountains and Mount Kenya in Africa.
He received honorary membership not for his professional career as an entomologist, but for his efforts on behalf of the society with the Norwegian Journal of Entomology, for which he served as editor from 1966 to 1978, and again from 1999 to 2007.