The Academy’s Center for Systematic Biology and Evolution houses one of the world’s top natural history collections, with over 19 million specimens of plants and animals from around the world. These collections represent a veritable library of life on earth and are of international significance. Scientists in the Center conduct research into biodiversity, ecology, evolution, molecular systematics, and paleontology. Curators actively add to the collections each year and loan out thousands of specimens to assist scientists in their world around the world.
Departments
Plants (Botany)
Project Support
Associate Curator & Associate Professor (Drexel)
Curator Emeritus & Professor Emeritus (Drexel)
Collection Manager
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University’s (ANS) Botany (plants) Collection is more famously known in its field as the Philadelphia Herbarium (PH). The herbarium contains the Academy’s collections of plants (including fossils), algae, lichens, fungi, and slime molds. The 1.4 million specimens include some of the oldest and most important plant collections in the Americas and make the herbarium a global resource for research on these organisms.
GBIF Collections IDigBio Collections Symbiota CollectionsMicroscopic Aquatic Organisms (Diatom Herbarium)
Collection Manager
Associate Curator & Associate Professor (Drexel)
The ANS Diatom Herbarium, one of the two largest in the world, includes approximately 252,000 permanent slides and 130,000 samples of recent and fossil diatoms collected from fresh, brackish, and marine habitats. In addition to its world coverage and inclusion of fossil diatoms, the herbarium has an extensive record of materials collected as part of environmental surveys of lakes, rivers and marine coasts conducted by Federal and State agencies, Academy employees, and other researchers throughout the United States. Often extending over decades, these surveys offer a unique resource to study long-term changes in diatom populations and ecology.
Diatom New Taxon File Website Diatoms Collection WebsiteInsects (Entomology)
Curatorial Assistant
Curator Emeritus & Professor Emeritus (Drexel)
Collection Manager
Curatorial Assistant
NPS Valley Forge Invertebrate Inventory
Curator Emeritus
The Academy holds one of the larger and more taxonomically complete entomological collections in North America. It includes some of the earliest North American insect specimens, and some parts of the collection, such as the Orthoptera and related orders (grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, cockroaches, etc.) and the Entognatha (non-insect hexapods) rank among the best in the world. The collection is used by scientists worldwide in systematic and ecological research, in the education of Drexel University students, and in public programming at the Academy. Specimens predating the founding of the Academy in 1812 make this the oldest insect collection in the Americas.
Species Index Collection GBIF Collections Ecdysis CollectionsGeneral Invertebrates
Collection Manager
Curator & Professor (Drexel)
The General Invertebrates Collection of over 25,000 lots of specimens includes 16 phyla, with major holdings in the Crustacea (crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, barnacles, etc.), Echinodermata (starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars, sea cucumbers), Annelida (segmented worms) and Cnidaria (coral, sea anemones, jellyfish, etc.). The collection, which contains dry, alcohol-preserved and prepared microscope slides is worldwide in scope, with an emphasis on the Eastern and Gulf Coast regions of the United States.
Reptiles and Amphibians (Herpetology)
Collection Manager
The Herpetology Collection at the Academy is one of the most historically important and biologically diverse collections of reptiles and amphibians in the world. The collection is of moderate size and world-wide in scope with a strong emphasis on specimens of the New World. Prominent in the collection, and a special reason for its great value, are the types of more than 500 named forms, including many primary types or the first scientifically named specimens.
GBIF Herpetology Collection IDigBio Herpetology Collection VertNet Herpetology CollectionIchthyology
Collection Manager
Curator Emeritus
Collection Manager
The Ichthyology Department is home to one of the most important collections of preserved fishes in the Americas with an estimated 1.6 million specimens representing more than 15,000 species from waters throughout the world. The collection’s strengths span both taxonomy and geography.
GBIF Fish Collection IDigBio Fish Collection VertNet Fish CollectionInvertebrate Fossils (Invertebrate Paleontology)
Invertebrate Paleontology Manager
Associate Curator & Associate Professor (Drexel)
The ANS Invertebrate Paleontology Collection is the oldest Invertebrate Paleontology collection in the country, and the collection’s history goes back to the founding of the Academy. The collection is estimated to contain over 1 million invertebrate specimens, including 5,000 types from over 100 authors.
GBIF Invert Paleo Collection IDigBio Invert Paleo CollectionMollusks (Malacology)
Collection Manager
Curator & Professor (Drexel)
Curatorial Assistant
The Department of Malacology at ANS houses the world’s fourth-largest mollusk collection with over 500,000 cataloged and digitized dry lots and substantial separate holdings of acquired material. The fluid-preserved collection contains more than 50,000 lots that are fully digitized and searchable online.
GBIF Malacology Collection IDigBio Malacology CollectionMammals (Mammalogy)
Collection Manager
The Mammalogy Collection consists of over 25,000 catalogued specimens. From those specimens, there are approximately 21,500 skeletal preparations, 13,500 associated skins and 1,700 wet-preserved specimens. Among these are over 180 primary types.
GBIF Mammalogy Collection VertNet Mammalogy CollectionBirds (Ornithology)
Lab Manager for Ornithology & Laboratory of Molecular Systematics & Ecology (LMSE)
Collection Manager
Associate Curator & Associate Professor (Drexel)
The Ornithology Collection is one of the 10 largest collections of birds in the world. There are over 215,000 study skins from more than 8,000 species, and over 22,000 tissue samples, making it one of the most taxonomically complete collections of birds.
GBIF Ornithology Collection IDigBio Ornithology Collection VertNet Ornithology Collection VIREO Image CollectionVertebrate Fossils (Vertebrate Paleontology)
Collection Manager
Collection Manager
Vertebrate paleontology in the United States originated in Philadelphia through the efforts of physicians and natural historians associated with the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences. Native Philadelphian, Joseph Leidy (1823–1891) was a particularly brilliant anatomist working at the Academy during the growth of paleontology as a scientific discipline.
GBIF Vert Paleo Collection IDigBio Vert Paleo Collection VertNet Vert Paleo Collection