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Mollusk Collection
At present the Division of Invertebrates, which began in 1938 with a collection of 16,000 lots, manages more than 328,000 cataloged mollusk lots, with approximately 4.5 million specimens. Our molluscan collection now ranks among the top three or four in North America.
Learn moreAt present the Division of Invertebrates, which began in 1938 with a collection of 16,000 lots, manages more than 328,000 cataloged mollusk lots, with approximately 4.5 million specimens. Our molluscan collection now ranks among the top three or four in North America.
We have completed retrospective data entry for our holdings of pulmonate terrestrial gastropods, the Leslie Hubricht Collection, the marine gastropod family Conidae (including the Alan J. Kohn Collection), the cephalopods and the hydrothermal vent invertebrates. All other taxa in the database have been added as parts of various ongoing data capture projects and therefore should not be considered complete representations of our holdings.
Other groups will be added as our database projects progress. Please note that work on our type collection is not completed; information on type status and type holdings for the above families is not yet fully available.
View lessPlease see our Loan Policy.
Before you begin your search, please read the following description of what is available in this database and what information you will see displayed.
At present the Division of Invertebrates, which began in 1938 with a collection of 16,000 lots, manages more than 326,500 cataloged mollusk lots, with approximately 4.5 million specimens. Our molluscan collection now ranks among the top three or four in North America.
We have completed retrospective data entry for our holdings of pulmonate terrestrial gastropods, the Leslie Hubricht Collection, the marine gastropod family Conidae (including the Alan J. Kohn Collection), the cephalopods, all fluid preserved specimens, some Bivalves (including Veneridae, Cardiidae, Pectinidae, Carditidae, Chamidae, Ostreidae, Pectinidae, Pinnidae, Propeamussiidae, Spondylidae, Trigoniidae and some Unionidae) and the hydrothermal vent invertebrates. All other taxa in the database have been added as parts of various ongoing data capture projects and therefore should not be considered complete representations of our holdings.
There are currently approximately 185,300 records available on-line of a total of ca. 200,000 records databased. Some records are not yet available on-line because they are part of ongoing research projects or publications.
Other groups will be added as our database project progresses. Please note that work on our type collection is not completed; information on type status and type holdings for the above families is not yet fully available. We have yet to systematically data enter the Prosobranch collection and are currently entering the Bivalvia collection so results of those searches should not be considered our entire holdings.
Please note that this database - like most other such museum systems - is not static. New material is being added, specimens are re-identified by specialists, taxonomic or geographic information is upgraded, material is being used or modified during various research projects (such as histological or molecular preparations). At present, we see a main purpose of this "publication" of the data as a tool to give potential users of our collection advance information about material available by loan or for on-site study.
