UCM Fossil Vertebrate Specimens (Arctos)

Occurrence Specimen
Latest version published by University of Colorado Museum of Natural History on Oct 10, 2025 University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
Home:
https://www.colorado.edu/cumuseum/research-collections/paleontology
Publication date:
10 October 2025
License:
CC-BY-NC 4.0

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 92,044 records in English (10 MB) - Update frequency: monthly
Metadata as an EML file download in English (14 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (9 KB)

Description

The UCM Fossil Vertebrate Collection contains nearly a hundred thousand cataloged fossil vertebrate specimens. This collection is the culmination of over 100 years of collecting from around the world and contains fossils that range in age from the Devonian through the Quaternary Periods. Its strengths are in Cretaceous marine vertebrates and Late Mesozoic-Cenozoic fossil mammals from the Rocky Mountain region.

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 92,044 records.

2 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)
92044
ResourceRelationship 
81478
Multimedia 
1248

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:

University of Colorado Museum of Natural History Fossil Vertebrate Collection. Individual catalog records should be cited by the catalog record URL: https://arctos.database.museum/guid/UCM:FossilVert:100000

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 8ec78bf5-95c6-4848-8547-3ffbe087abde.  University of Colorado Museum of Natural History publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.

Keywords

Occurrence; Specimen; Occurrence; Specimen

Contacts

Jacob Van Veldhuizen
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Originator ●
  • Point Of Contact
  • Vertebrate Paleontology Collections Manager
University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
  • 265 UCB
80309 Boulder
Colorado
US
Jaelyn Eberle
  • Point Of Contact
  • Curator of Fossil Vertebrates
University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
  • 265 UCB
80309 Boulder
Colorado
US
Dusty McDonald
  • Programmer
Arctos
David Bloom
  • Programmer
VertNet

Geographic Coverage

Worldwide, strength in the Rocky Mountain region of North America.

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

Taxonomic Coverage

Chordata, emphasis on marine vertebrates and mammals

Phylum Chordata (Chordate)
Subphylum Vertebrata (Vertebrates)
Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fish), Amphibia (Amphibians), Aves (Birds), Chondrichthyes (Cartilaginous Fish), Conodonta (Conodonts), Reptilia (Reptiles), Petromyzontida (Lampreys), Mammalia (Mammals), Placodermi (Placoderms), Pteraspidomorphi (Jawless Fish)

Temporal Coverage

Living Time Period Devonian through Quaternary

Collection Data

Collection Name University of Colorado Museum of Natural History (UCM) Fossil Vertebrate Specimens
Collection Identifier https://arctos.database.museum/collection/UCM:FossilVert
Parent Collection Identifier UCM

Additional Metadata

Arctos Data Ownership and Use: http://arctosdb.org/home/data/; http://vertnet.org/resources/norms.html

Purpose
Alternative Identifiers 8ec78bf5-95c6-4848-8547-3ffbe087abde
https://ipt.vertnet.org/resource?r=ucm_fossilvert