[Nhcoll-l] Ranking of largest collections -- HELP

[Doug Yanega]

On 1/27/15 12:50 PM, Christopher Kemp wrote:
> I don't know if this is empirically known or somewhat debatable, but 
> I'm trying to make a list of the top 5 natural history collections in 
> the US, and in the world. So, two lists. And I mean in terms of size, 
> or number of specimens. Please weigh in. I'm assuming NMNH, AMNH, the 
> Field for the US, but who's next? And in the world, I just don't know: 
> the NMNH, the BMNH, the AMNH? I don't know. Share your thoughts. I'm 
> at cjkemp at gmail.com <mailto:cjkemp at gmail.com>, or respond on the listserv.
The numbers are empirically known, though lists tend to be compiled by 
discipline. Using absolute numbers will be very misleading, and heavily 
bias your list towards arthropod-containing collections (e.g., our 
collection of 3 million places us around #20 in terms of the size of 
North American insect collections, for example; however, you won't find 
very many collections that have no insects but still have over 3 million 
specimens). Number of types will also be highest in insect-containing 
collections, as well.

I'm trying to recall the last time I saw a printed ranking of 
collections, and drawing a blank; however, the NMNH, AMNH, FMNH, LACM, 
and CAS are what I recall as the largest US collections, but there are 
others like the MCZ, Peabody, Carnegie, Bishop, and ANSP. You can look 
up virtually all major collections in Wikipedia for very up-to-date 
counts of holdings 
(https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums-5Fin-5Fthe-5FUnited-5FStates&d=AwIC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=szR9bCje6egBBC1qphUuVAaNn0GQu45nso8-7-RDoKs&e=  
for the US, and 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums&d=AwIC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=ida5A6DumJmZHvhtnrqdNeMMZhCE9DCNmO9w0XG2JqY&e=  for 
worldwide), and derive rankings yourself.

I just checked the museums I recalled above, and they are indeed all 
quite large: NMNH - 126 million; LACM - 35 million; AMNH - 32 million; 
CAS - 26 million; FMNH - 24 million; Carnegie - 22 million; MCZ - 21 
million; ANSP - 17 million; Peabody - 12 million. The Bishop Museum 
entry doesn't give their entire holdings, but their insect collection 
alone is 13.5 million. If all of the University of California's 
collections were housed together (UC Riverside, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, 
primarily) we'd also be on that list, with between 15-18 million as a 
group. I am not sure if any stand-alone herbaria qualify for inclusion, 
though many of the collections above include plant specimens. I believe 
that Paris is the all-around largest, by a significant margin, but the 
Wikipedia entry gives no estimate of their collection size. The NHM in 
London claims only 80 million, which seems lower to me than I would have 
supposed.

Hope this helps,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__cache.ucr.edu_-7Eheraty_yanega.html&d=AwIC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=WgQG8FoSu-ep4dNTC11Q7XttcfVxmy9gt3CSuQoiPno&e= 
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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