Collections

One of the largest systematic collections of pre-Columbian artifacts from the West Indies in North America, the collection contains systematic collections from sites on the islands of Antigua, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Marie-Galante, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam, Tobago, Trinidad, Turks and Caicos, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Venezuela. Visit the Caribbean Archaeology site

The CTL houses an extensive pottery type collection of prehistoric and historic period aboriginal pottery from Florida and the Southeastern U.S. Analyses of physical and mineralogical properties of the pottery are undertaken to provide precise data to address research questions regarding chronology, provenience or manufacturing origins, processes of production, culture change, and the development of social and economic complexity in prehistoric Florida, the Southeastern U.S., and the Caribbean Basin. Visit the Ceramic Technology Lab site

The Environmental Archaeology Program collections include modern comparative and archaeological specimens of zoological and botanical materials and archaeological soils. The collections are strongest in zoological comparative and archaeological specimens as this was the original focus of the Program, but holdings are continually added in both archaeological and modern soils and plants. The Environmental Archaeology collections are one of only a few such collections in the United States or the world that integrate both comparative and archaeological materials. The osteological fish comparative collection is the 5th largest in North America just behind the U.S. National Museum's. The region of greatest strength is the southeastern United States and the Caribbean. The comparative collections from northwestern South America and Mesoamerica are not complete in range and taxonomic coverage, but are expanding due to active research efforts in those areas. Visit the Environmental Archaeology site

The Florida Archaeology Collection includes artifacts spanning 14,000 years of human history from more than 1,500 archaeological sites, including some of the most important in the state. Much of what is known about pre-Columbian Florida is based on these collections that were excavated by such notables as John Goggin, William Sears, Ripley Bullen, and their students. Collections include both artifacts and the documentation regarding their excavation and analysis. They also curate significant collections from Georgia and other localities. Visit the Florida Archaeology site

The Historical Archaeology program has had ongoing research and training programs in St. Augustine, Florida since 1973, and in Hispaniola since 1979. The collections, including more than 2 million specimens from 124 sites in the circum-Caribbean region, provide a continuum of European colonial settlement spanning the period between the arrival of Columbus in 1492 and the end of Spanish dominion in 1821. Emphasis is on Spanish colonial materials and research collections. Visit the Historical Archaeology site

This collection of over 2500 artifacts includes ceramics, metalwork, wood, and textiles. Peru and Bolivia are well represented with ceramic vessels and textiles from a variety of periods. The largest component of our collection is from the Maya site of Cerros in Belize, a collection excavated by archaeologists working in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, we have a well documented Maya collection from the Peten, excavated in the 1960s. We also have a small number of ceramic artifacts excavated in the lowlands of Veracruz. The Latin American archaeology collection is not expected increase substantially because of ethical considerations first outlined in the 1970 UNESCO Convention of the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import and Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.  Visit the Latin American Archaeology site

The South Florida archaeological collections contain materials from 13 counties (Broward, Charlotte, Collier, Miami-Dade, Glades, Hendry, Highlands, Lee, Martin, Monroe, Okeechobee, Palm Beach, and St. Lucie). This area includes 14,666 square miles, about 27% of the area of Florida. Systematic artifact collections are most comprehensive for southwest Florida. There are also important reference collections from elsewhere in south Florida, including the so-called "Cushing Collection," the Van Beck Collection excavated from the Marco Midden in the 1960s, the extensive Fort Center collection, artifacts from Key Marco, artifacts collected by John Goggin on which the major systematic artifact typologies for south Florida are based; and all artifacts, pre-Columbian and post-contact, that have been excavated since 1983 by the Southwest Florida Project (e.g., Horr's Island, Cash Mound, Galt Island, Buck Key, Josslyn Island, Useppa Island, and the Pineland Site Complex). Visit the South Florida Archaeology site

Artifacts from the Andes include a premier collection transferred to our museum from the Harn Museum of Art. Originally acquired by Roy C. Craven and Robert P. Ebersole in their travels through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia in the mid 1970s, this collection is exceptionally well documented and includes both folk art and utilitarian objects of local manufacture. Amazonia is also well represented, and includes a large collection recently transferred to our museum by Federal authorities after it was impounded as evidence in a court case. This collection features elaborate feather work headdresses, as well as a number of other objects of ritual use. Material culture from contemporary Mesoamerica is currently only a small component of our collection, mostly represented by textiles and ceramics. Visit the Latin American Ethnography site

The North American ethnographic collection spans all the major geographic areas, and includes many important artifact types dating to the 1920s. Some of these were collected systematically, such as the material acquired by Oliver Austin from the Labrador Inuit and Innu (Naskapi) of Canada in 1927-1928. The Pearsall collection includes 2,320 North American Indian ethnographic artifacts purchased by Leigh Morgan Pearsall on the art market between 1900-1960. Rich in imagery of the cultural interface between European-Americans and Native Americans, this collection contains many examples of early forms of art made specifically for sale, providing an important resource for studying the origins of the North American Indian art market. Visit the North American Ethnography site

The University of Florida Herbarium, a joint operation of the Florida Museum and the Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, is composed of over 450,000 vascular plants, bryophytes and lichen specimens, 15,000 wood samples and 3,000 seeds samples. The herbarium's reference library contains over 10,000 publications with descriptions, geographical ranges and keys for differentiating species of vascular plants, as well as information regarding Latin plant names (nomenclature), plant collectors and economic botany.Visit the Herbarium site

With approximately 202,000 specimens, the herpetology collection is estimated to be the 9th largest in the U.S. Its skeletal collection, with more than 12,000 disarticulated skeletons and a small number of cleared and stained specimens, is 5th largest. An average of 3,800 new specimens is cataloged each year. Visit the Herpetology site

The Florida Museum Ichthyology Collection ranks as an international resource. Although holdings are global in scope, its strengths are Atlantic (including Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico) nearshore, continental shelf and deepwater marine fishes; western Atlantic reef fishes; North American, neotropical and Antillean freshwater fishes; and elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays). The collection has fully integrated important ichthyological collections formerly housed at the University of Miami, Florida State University, and the Tropical Atlantic Biological Laboratory (now National Marine Fisheries Service Southeast Fisheries Science Center) as well as numerous smaller regional collections. A web-based database allows for off-site searches of the 214,500 catalogued lots (ca. 2.3 million specimens). The division is host to several large-scale projects, including the National Science Foundation-funded "All Catfish Species Inventory" and "All Cypriniformes Species Inventory" projects and the Florida Program for Shark Research, which includes the International Shark Attack File. Visit the Ichthyology site

The Genetic Resources Repository was established in the summer of 2006 as a central facility for the long-term cryogenic preservation of museum materials destined to be used in genetics-based studies of evolution and conservation. The GRR archives samples from the other eight natural history research collections of the museum. Currently, approximately 35,000 samples are housed in the repository's liquid nitrogen freezer and in the coming years these holdings are expected to grow by about 6,000 per year. Visit the Genetic Resources Repository site

The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity houses more than 8 million specimens of butterfly and moth species and is approximately equal to the Natural History Museum, London, in Lepidoptera holdings, the two being the largest in the world. Visit the Lepidoptera site

The Mammalogy collection consists primarily of skins and skulls, although entire skeletons have been prepared for most specimens collected after 1980. Important collections include marine mammals (one of the most extensive collections in the U.S.), small mammals of Pakistan, Caribbean bats and Florida Panthers. Mammalogy has been involved with the Florida Panther Recovery Project since its inception and has the most significant research collection of this endangered species in the country. Visit the Mammalogy site

Scientists and students from 10 countries are currently working with a variety of molecular techniques to answer ecological and evolutionary questions at all taxonomic levels. Ongoing studies address the origin of the flower, the phylogeny of flowering plants, plant speciation, and the conservation genetics of endangered Florida plant species. Visit the Molecular Systematics & Evolutionary Genetics site

The Malacology collection is the 4th largest in North America, and the 2nd largest in the world in terms of online access. Its extensive holdings provide some of the best documentation available of change and extinction in North American freshwater habitats during the last century. The collection is renown for land and freshwater snails, and tropical reef mollusks. The Invertebrate Zoology collection, currently housed with Malacology, is the newest addition to the museum. Initiated in 2000, it is already among the 10 largest in the US, with a rapidly growing collection of reef invertebrates worldwide in scope. Visit the Malacology & Invertebrate Zoology site

The Ornithology Division curates the world's fifth-largest collection of modern bird skeletons, and its sound collection is the Western hemisphere's second-largest in number of species. The egg collection represents approximately 90 percent of North America's living bird species and subspecies. Visit the Ornithology site

The strength and significance of the Invertebrate Paleontology Collection reside in the extensive amount of material collected within the last 30 years from sites all over Florida, the southeastern U.S., the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and Antarctica. Additionally, numerous fossil collections (e.g., Emily & Harold Vokes-Tulane University, Florida Geological Survey, Department of Geology-Florida State University, Paul and Thomas McGinty, Evelyn and Ernest Bradley, Muriel Hunter and Joe Banks, Jules DuBar, Maxwell Smith, William Lyons-Florida Marine Research Institute, Rollins College, Richard Petit, Lyle Campbell-University of South Carolina Upstate, John Waldrop, Victor Zullo-University of North Carolina Wilmington, Daniel Blake-University of Illinois Urbana) have been acquired. Totaling nearly 6.0 million specimens, these fossils constitute one of the finest Cenozoic invertebrate collections in the U.S. Visit the Invertebrate Paleontology site

The collection is the 3rd largest paleobotanical collection in the United States with approximately 300,000 specimens collected from 1,800 localities. It is international in scope, ranging from the Proterozoic to the Pleistocene, and includes collections from more than 50 countries. Its greatest strength is in Cretaceous-Tertiary (from 120 million years old to the present) angiosperms, or flowering plants, which are represented by large numbers of well-preserved fruits and flowers as well as leaves and wood. Modern reference collections for leaves (6,280 specimens), fruits and seeds (2,300 specimens), pollen (The DM & S Jarzen palynological collection with approximately 6,824 slides) are also available for comparative studies. The type and figured collection includes all Florida Museum paleobotanical specimens that have been cited in published literature, extending from the 1920s to the present. Approximately 250 publications are known to have cited 5,000 specimens that now reside in the paleobotanical collection. Visit the Paleobotany & Palynology site

The third-largest of its kind in the United States, our collection features rich samples of all vertebrate classes, mainly from the Cenozoic Era, with more than 750,000 specimens, ranging from entire skeletons of mammoths and giant ground sloths to single teeth of mice and lizards. More than 80% of the collection comes from about 2,000 localities in Florida. Other contributing regions are the Caribbean Basin and surrounding areas in Central and northern South America (including the only known specimens of the largest known snake Titanoboa) and early Tertiary basins in Wyoming and Montana. Visit the Vertebrate Paleontology site