Vertebrate Zoology

Mammal Collections

Mammal Collection Receives ASM Accreditation

The 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.

Divisional Holdings

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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