MSB Mammal Collection (Arctos)

Occurrence Specimen
Latest version published by Museum of Southwestern Biology on Oct 2, 2025 Museum of Southwestern Biology
Home:
http://www.msb.unm.edu/mammals
Publication date:
2 October 2025
License:
CC0 1.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 351,742 records in English (97 MB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (11 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (9 KB)

Description

The Division of Mammals contains over 327,000 catalogued specimens and is among the 3 largest in the world. Specimens date back to the 1880's with the majority documenting the rapid environmental change that has occurred since the 1950's. The collections are taxonomically broad, representing 25 orders, 106 families, 543 genera, ~1,750 species. The majority from the Orders Rodentia (249,000), Chiroptera (27,000), Carnivora (20,000), Eulipotyphla (16,000) and Artiodactyla (7,800). The collections are world-wide in scope (78 countries and all 50 US states) with particularly strong holdings from Western North America (225,000 specimens), Beringia and high latitudes (39,000 from Alaska, Russia and Canada), Mongolia (6,500 specimens and parasites), and Latin America (10,200 specimens from Bolivia, 10,000 from Panama, 7,000 from Chile, and 5,400 from Argentina). The collection contains 89 holotypes or paratypes, 185 parasite symbiotypes and 22 virus symbiotypes. Important collections integrated into the MSB include the USGS Biological Surveys collection (30,000), the UIMNH (Hoffmeister) Collection (33,000), and the Rausch Collection (4,000 specimens and parasites). Specimens range from traditional skin/skull and fluid vouchers to "holistic vouchers" containing skin, skull, post-cranial skeleton, up to seven tissue types (heart, kidney, liver, lung, spleen, muscle, blood), cell suspensions, and ecto and endo parasites. Additionally, frozen tissue samples are available for about 200,000 individual mammals and date back to the late 1970's. 37,000 specimens have serology data associated with hantavirus surveillance programs in the Americas. The MSB houses an extensive archive of field journals and catalogues that date to the 1900's and are associated with specimens held in the collection. The collections are growing rapidly through the active research programs of curators, staff and students and ongoing collaborations with other institutions and governmental agencies.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 351,742 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Occurrence (core)
351742
Multimedia 
39853

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Division of Mammals, Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB)

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Museum of Southwestern Biology. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: b15d4952-7d20-46f1-8a3e-556a512b04c5.  Museum of Southwestern Biology publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.

Keywords

Occurrence; Specimen; Occurrence

Contacts

Joseph Cook
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Originator ●
  • Point Of Contact
  • Curator of Mammals
Museum of Southwestern Biology
  • University of New Mexico
87131-0001 Albuquerque
NM
US
  • (505) 277-1358
David Bloom
  • Programmer
  • VertNet Coordinator
Dusty McDonald
  • Point Of Contact
  • Arctos Database Programmer
University of Alaska Museum
Jon Dunnum
  • Point Of Contact
  • Collection Manager, Mammals
Museum of Southwestern Biology
  • University of New Mexico
87131-0001 Albuquerque
NM
US
  • (505) 277-9262

Geographic Coverage

The MSB mammal collections are world-wide in scope (72 countries and all 50 US states), with particularly strong holdings from Western North America (150,000 specimens), Beringia and high latitudes (26,000 from Alaska, Russia and Canada), Mongolia (4,200 specimens and parasites), and Latin America (10,200 specimens from Bolivia 7,000 from Chile; 5,000 from Panama).

Bounding Coordinates South West [-90, -180], North East [90, 180]

Taxonomic Coverage

The MSB mammal collections are taxonomically broad, representing 27 orders, 103 families, 513 genera, and approximately 1,400 species. The majority of specimens are from the Orders Rodentia (190,000), Chiroptera (25,000), Carnivora (15,000), Soricomorpha (10,000) and Artiodactyla (7,500).

Class Mammalia

Temporal Coverage

Living Time Period 1890 to present

Additional Metadata

http://vertnet.org/resources/norms.html

Alternative Identifiers b15d4952-7d20-46f1-8a3e-556a512b04c5
https://ipt.vertnet.org/resource?r=msb_mamm