Filter by Specimen Type
Click on the pie chart segment to filter
Mammalogy
Herbarium
Ornithology
Ichthyology
Herpetology
Arthropods
Parasites
Hosts
Filter by Specimen Type
Click on the pie chart segment to filter
Filter by Taxon
Select which orders (left), families (center), and genera (right) to filter
Filter by Year of Collection
Highlight part of graph to filter
Pie Chart: The pie chart shows the specimen distribution across different taxa. Try choosing one of the pie sections to filter the map to your selection of interest. You can select more than onenpie section at the same time!
Filter by Taxon: After selecting your taxa, you can take a look at specific orders, families, and genera.
Filter by Year: The Museum of Southwestern Biology has specimens that were collected over 100 years ago! You can filter the specimen results by year if you would like. *Note: Specimens with the year 1900 have an unknown date of collection*
After filtering data by specimen, taxon, and year, you can download these data in the viewable portion of the map. Simply zoom in to the area of interest for downloaded data, and click the green "Download Data" button in the bottom right corner of the map.
Hover over each bar to see the size of each collection
Click and drag over a section of the chart to zoom in. Double click to zoom out. Hover over each collection in the legend to highlight only that collection.
This web map was designed with the intention of making museum data more accessible to those that are interested in museum science. With this map users can select a taxa that interests them and visualize specimen locations on an interactive map of the United States. Our hope is that this map appeals to a wide range of users from a casual person interested in science to a scientist looking for detailed data about collections.
Collections data from the MSB are generally available in public databases and can be searched and downloaded. Specimen data from each collection is housed in one of three databases (Arctos, SEINet, or SCAN) and consolidated alongside collections around the world at GBIF.
The resources below were vital for the design and implementation of this web app.
The University of New Mexico's Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB) is an important repository for biological data from New Mexico, with collections spanning over a century. Click the links below to visit pages for information on the MSB.
Museums across the world house millions of collections, with many on display for educational purposes and many more preserved for facilitating scientific research. The utility of museum collections is outstanding! Collections have been utilized in species classification (and discovery), ecology research, conservation research, and more recently, in disease research. We will undoubtedly see new uses for collections in the not so far future! Click the links below to check out some famous natural history museums.