Description
Vertebrate Zoology in the CU Museum of Natural History is a biodiversity repository of more than 120,000 specimens from five taxa: Fishes, Amphibians and Reptiles (Herpetology), Birds, and Mammals.Since our specimens document changes in biodiversity over the last 200 years, they are treasures of biological and historical significance. The Herpetology collection spans 77 countries, with its geographic strength in Mexican and the southwestern United States species. It contains over 68,000 specimens, including over 22,000 from Mexico, which have been actively studied and cited in systematic herpetology publications over recent decades. Additionally, the whiptail lizards (genus <i>Aspidoscelis</i>) are particularly well represented, including over 12,000 fluid-preserved specimens and two hundred dry skulls. The world-renowned herpetologists, Hobart M. Smith and T. Paul Maslin, as well as a number of their students and collaborators, were the major architects of our largest vertebrate collection. R. Earl Olson's contribution of 3,800+ specimens recently expanded our taxonomic and geographic coverage, including new material from Minnesota and Haiti. Most recently, Julio A. Lemos-Espinal contributed 2,600 specimens from the northern Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila.
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 68,396 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.
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 Amphibians and Reptiles Collection
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. 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: 8935e64a-f762-11e1-a439-00145eb45e9a. 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
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Vertebrate Zoology Collections Manager
- UCB 265
- 303-492-8466
- Point Of Contact
- Arctos Database Programmer
- Curator
- Vertebrate Zoology Curator
- UCB 265
- 303-735-1016
Geographic Coverage
The herpetology collection spans 77 countries, although its geographic strength is Mexico (more than 22,000) and the southwestern USA. There is new material from Minnesota and Haiti. Our Mexican reptile specimens have been most actively studied and cited in systematic herpetology publications over recent decades. Most recently, Julio A. Lemos-Espinal contributed 2,600 specimens from the northern Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila.
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-90, -180], North East [90, 180] |
|---|
Taxonomic Coverage
More than 67,000 specimens. The whiptail lizards (genus Aspidoscelis) are particularly well represented. 342+ type specimens (16 holotypes & 326+ paratypes).
| Class | Amphibia (amphibians), Reptilia (reptiles) |
|---|
Temporal Coverage
| Living Time Period | 1800 to present |
|---|
Additional Metadata
http://vertnet.org/resources/norms.html
| Alternative Identifiers | 8935e64a-f762-11e1-a439-00145eb45e9a |
|---|---|
| https://ipt.vertnet.org/resource?r=ucm_herps |