he Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Vertebrate Zoology Mammal Collection has been officially accredited by the American Society of Mammalogists.
All aspects of the collection were evaluated by members of the ASM’s
Systematic Collections Committee, including specimen preparation,
storage and curation. Accreditation is part of the Division’s overall
planning for strengthening the collection. In addition, as of February
2007 the Mammalogy Collection has been available on MaNIS, the Mammal Networked Information System.
The mammal collection in the Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Vertebrate Zoology,
although one of the Museum’s smaller collections, is worldwide in
coverage, and contains representatives of all mammalian orders except
Neotropical Paucituberculata and Microbiotheria. The material consists
mainly of skins and skulls, with smaller numbers of postcranial
skeletons and specimens preserved in alcohol.
The 5,086
mammal skins (over 720 species) date from the 19th century, and include
several rare and endangered species: duck-billed platypus, 2 species of
echidna, black rhinoceros, mountain gorilla, black-footed ferret and
snow leopard. The skeleton collection
is small (4,776 specimens representing over 770 species), but
historically important, and includes one of only 7 complete skeletons
of the now extinct quagga, a large series of bison skulls from the 1870s, and one of the few known skeletons of aquatic tenrec and Russian desman.
The collections includes 10,847 specimens representing some 9,800
species. Nearly half of the specimens (5,085) are from North America
north of Mexico. African mammals are represented by 1,570 specimens,
with the largest holdings from Kenya (680) and Egypt (396). Neotropical
taxa are represented by 1,076 specimens, with the largest holdings from
Mexico (510) and Ecuador (284).
The Yale Peabody Museum’s collections are available to legitimate
researchers for scholarly use. Loans are issued to responsible
individuals at established institutions. Loans and access to the
collection can be arranged through the Collections Manager.
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