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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/27/15 12:50 PM, Christopher Kemp
wrote:<br>
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<div>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 <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:cjkemp@gmail.com">cjkemp@gmail.com</a>, or
respond on the listserv.</div>
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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.<br>
<br>
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
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums-5Fin-5Fthe-5FUnited-5FStates&d=AwMC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=szR9bCje6egBBC1qphUuVAaNn0GQu45nso8-7-RDoKs&e=">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_history_museums_in_the_United_States</a>
for the US, and
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_List-5Fof-5Fnatural-5Fhistory-5Fmuseums&d=AwMC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=ida5A6DumJmZHvhtnrqdNeMMZhCE9DCNmO9w0XG2JqY&e=">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_history_museums</a> for
worldwide), and derive rankings yourself. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Hope this helps,<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
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)
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__cache.ucr.edu_-7Eheraty_yanega.html&d=AwMC-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=myvO-IsV_QaaN3EHvqE5Bx2De42llbeBeyYTzvumYJU&s=WgQG8FoSu-ep4dNTC11Q7XttcfVxmy9gt3CSuQoiPno&e=">http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html</a>
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82</pre>
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