Explore the Collections
The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science is an active, growing, mid-Atlantic repository for specimens collected around the world. With over 2.3 million individual shells in the mollusk collection, more than 116,000 birds from around the world, and other invertebrate, vertebrate, and paleontological specimens, the scientific collections preserve an incredible biodiversity record with specimens collected as early as 1859.
Ongoing, ethical scientific collecting is critical to documenting and understanding the Earth’s biodiversity. Morphological and genetic data derived from collections provide a baseline to examine changes in species distributions over time, and to study the effects of invasive species, habitat loss, trophic structure, and climate change. Specimens are also critical resources for basic research on disease vectors and host-parasite relationships.
Geographic Diversity
Staff and volunteers have georeferenced more than half the collection records. This heat map below provides an estimate of georeferenced records in the DelMNS collection, as retrieved through GBIF.org. Colored hexagons indicate approximately how many specimens were collected in the given region (yellow, n = 100; orange, n = 1,000; red, n = 10,000).
Taxonomic Diversity
Breakout by Major Avian Taxon
The bird collection contains roughly 75% songbirds with sizeable collections representing other major taxa. Only the 10 largest bird orders at DelMNS are included in this figure.
Breakout by Major Mollusca Taxon
The mollusk collection is roughly 75% gastropods and 25% bivalves, with small collections of other major taxa. The 234,000 lots represent more than 18,000 species.
That belongs in a museum!
Does your research or surveys involve collecting? Have you thought of a home for any specimens your work may generate? A museum is the perfect place for the long-term storage of specimens used in scientific research. It ensures that future generations will be able to access the same specimens for verification, reproducibility of experiments, and as a resource to answer any future, unforeseen questions. We are actively adding locally-collected vouchers to the Bird, Mammal, Mollusk, Paleontology, and Entomology collections.