Invertebrate Paleontology Collections

The Department of Invertebrate Paleontology houses a research collection of invertebrate fossils that has the greatest taxonomic breadth of any of our museum's collections. It houses specimens from many localities in North America as well as several localities in Europe, Asia, and South America. These include echinoderms from the Hunsrück Slate of Bundenbach, Germany, myriapods from Illinois, West Virginia, and the Dominican Republic, and many other types of fossils. Most specimens in the collection are body fossils, but there is also a large number of trace fossils (ichnofossils).

Collection Details

The collection's strength is in Ohio fossils. Fossil arthropods and other organisms from the Devonian shales of northeastern Ohio are especially well represented, as are crinoids and other fossils from the Mississippian rocks of the area. As of August 2011, the collection included more than 18,000 lots of specimens (one or more specimens with the same catalog number). This cataloged collection has more than 65,000 individual specimens.

Specimens from the collection have been illustrated and described in articles published in scientific journals, textbooks, and nontechnical publications. Many specimens from the collection are illustrated in "Fossils of Ohio" (Ohio Division of Geological Survey Bulletin 70), the basic reference on Ohio fossils. Others are illustrated in papers published in the "Journal of Paleontology," "Kirtlandia" (the scientific publication of the Museum) and other scientific journals, as well as in student theses.

There are 15 holotypes, 16 paratypes, 454 figured specimens, and a total of more than 440 cited specimens (including specimens that are figured) in the collection. The collection of figured or cited specimens includes body fossils from the Chagrin Shale of Ohio such as brachiopods, mollusks, crustaceans, conularids, and tubes of the problematic organism Sphenothallus.

There are also a good number of figured specimens of the problematic organism Sidetes from the Cleveland Shale, conulariids from diverse localities, crinoids from Ohio, and Pleistocene molluscs from Illinois, Kansas, and other western and midwestern states. The collection also includes large numbers of figured or cited trace fossils from the Chagrin Shale of Ohio, the Mississippian of West Virginia, and the Jurassic of New Jersey.

Invertebrate Paleontology Collections Database

Data about cataloged specimens in the collection is entered into a computerized database, called Specify, from the University of Kansas Biodiversity Research Center. The collection database is accessible and searchable online. Click the image below to view our database:

For More Information
Interested researchers can contact the department staff for more information at: 
(216) 231-4600 ext. 3233, or email hannibal@cmnh.org