Science: Library of Life

Science

The library of life: collecting natural history

Why collect biological specimens?

Natural history inventories are archives of biodiversity that provide reference materials for research to help us better understand our world, our past, and our future.

Museums collect biological material for three quite separate functions: display, reference, and documentation of scientific advances. It is unusual for a single specimen to fulfill all three functions. Unlike the objects in most other kinds of museums, all biological material requires some form of preparation to arrest biodegradation. Prepared specimens must then be kept in conditions that will forestall further decay. Different kinds of specimens are handled in different ways often dictated by their intended use.

The museum and research center’s inventories of plant and animal specimens are maintained as vouchers of its scientific work and to allow new work to refine our current understanding of earth’s species.

Collections: A quick profile

Birds

Specimens: 100,000
Rank: Sixteenth in the nation. The skeleton research inventory is the third largest in the world.
Significance: Focus on the Americas; large inventories from Borneo, Kenya, Australia, and Papua New Guinea

Visit the ornithology department

Fish

Specimens: 630,000 & 7,400 tissues
Rank: Among the top 25 in the nation
Significance: Strong in fishes from the continental U.S., Ecuador, and Nepal; one of the largest collections of frozen tissue samples in the world

Visit the ichthyology department

Fossil plants

Specimens: 250,000
Rank: Second-largest fossil plant inventory in the nation
Significance: World’s largest inventory of fossil plants from Antarctica, strong inventories of Pennsylvanian and Cretaceous fossils from the Midwest

Visit the paleobotany department

Insects

Specimens: 4.3 million
Rank: Among the top five among university museums, top 10 overall
Significance: World’s best bee and scorpionfly research inventory

Visit the entomology department

Invertebrate fossils

Specimens: 800,000
Rank: Fourth in the nation among university museums
Significance: Strong in Late Paleozoic invertebrates and microfossils, Cambrian faunas including trilobites and inarticulated brachiopods

Visit the invertebrate paleontology department

Invertebrate Zoology

Specimens: a thousand-plus lots
Significance: A growing collection of mid-continent non-insect invertebrates, including earthworms, crayfish, and unionid mussels; the major repository of voucher specimens for the cnidarian Assembling the Tree of Life grant.

Visit the invertebrate zoology department

Mammals

Specimens: 165,000
Rank: Fifth in the nation
Significance: Extensive inventories from the Great Plains; west, southwest, and southeast United States; and Central America

Visit the mammalogy department

Plants

Specimens: 350,000
Rank: Top 75 National Resource Collections
Significance: Nation’s premier herbarium for Great Plains flora

Visit the botany department

Reptiles and amphibians

Specimens: 292,000
Rank: Fourth in the U.S.
Significance: Inventories from the Great Plains, Mexico, and Central and South America are especially strong.

Visit the herpetology department

Vertebrate fossils

Specimens: 141,000
Rank: Sixth in the nation
Significance: Extensive inventories of Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic vertebrates; notable inventories of South American vertebrates, North American small mammals, Jurassic dinosaurs, Cretaceous marine invertebrates, and Pleistocene mammals

Visit the vertebrate paleontology department