Invertebrate Zoology Collections at the Museum of Biological Diversity (OSUM)

Occurrence Specimen
Latest version published by Museum of Biological Diversity, The Ohio State University on Jul 22, 2025 Museum of Biological Diversity, The Ohio State University
Home:
https://invertebrates.osu.edu/
Publication date:
July 22, 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 80,334 records in English (6 MB) - Update frequency: monthly
Metadata as an EML file download in English (14 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (10 KB)

Description

The Division of Invertebrate Zoology at The Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity is a major center for research on the evolution, ecology, taxonomy and conservation of global invertebrate biodiversity. We maintain several important natural history collections of invertebrates: Bivalve Mollusks, Gastropods (and other non-bivalve mollusks), Crustaceans, and General Invertebrates. Though we have specimens collected as early as the 1810s, the collections formally began in the 1890s as part of the "O.S.U. Museum of Zoology". The collections were then managed by the Ohio Historical Society (OHS) which operated on OSU's campus as "The Ohio State Museum" from about 1925 to the 1960s. In 1970, the University became the primary custodian of all the zoological collections aside from a small synoptic set of Ohio material retained by OHS. The invertebrate collections were historically curated independently as 3 separate Divisions of the museum, but have been been managed as one Invertebrate Zoology Division of the Museum of Biological Diversity since 2024. The invertebrate zoology collections contain >1.5 million dry and >900,000 fluid-preserved specimens in ca. 125,000 cataloged lots. Our collecting and curatorial efforts are predominantly focused on documenting the worldwide distribution and diversity of non-marine (i.e. land and freshwater) invertebrates, specifically mollusks and crustaceans. We maintain the largest collection of freshwater bivalves in the world, and our gastropod and crayfish collections are also among the worlds' largest.

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 80,334 records.

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:

Shoobs N (2025). Invertebrate Zoology Collections at the Museum of Biological Diversity (OSUM). Version 1.1. Museum of Biological Diversity, The Ohio State University. Occurrence dataset. https://asc-ipt.asc.ohio-state.edu/mbd/resource?r=osum_invertebrate_zoology&v=1.1

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Museum of Biological Diversity, The Ohio State University. 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: a0551854-61b9-4c1b-ad08-7f10af835b6a.  Museum of Biological Diversity, The Ohio State University publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.

Keywords

Occurrence; Specimen

Contacts

Nathaniel Shoobs
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Originator ●
  • Point Of Contact
  • Curator
The Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity
  • 1315 Kinnear Rd.
43212 Columbus
Ohio
US
  • 614-688-1342

Geographic Coverage

Worldwide.

Bounding Coordinates South West [-40.779, -162.069], North East [68.356, 178.423]

Taxonomic Coverage

N/A

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Mollusca
Class Bivalvia
Order Venerida, Unionida
Family Mactridae, Unionidae

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1800-07-20 / 2025-03-30

Collection Data

Collection Name Bivalve Mollusks
Collection Identifier d139baa6-7fd3-4cba-b4b0-a2bd2ec2c9b8
Parent Collection Identifier 4e84a395-fa1a-4bd4-aa75-c0e18610e0ce
Collection Name Gastropods and Other Mollusks
Collection Identifier ac3cb3f6-9761-4bfa-bff5-b16a152b46d6
Parent Collection Identifier 4e84a395-fa1a-4bd4-aa75-c0e18610e0ce
Collection Name Crustaceans
Collection Identifier 34b8abb6-c40d-4dff-a91b-46b8138df0b1
Parent Collection Identifier 4e84a395-fa1a-4bd4-aa75-c0e18610e0ce
Specimen preservation methods Dried,  Alcohol,  Microscopic preparation,  Deep frozen
Curatorial Units Between 120,000 and 130,000 lots ,  Between 2,400,000 and 3,000,000 specimens