American Museum of Natural History

AMNH Invertebrate Paleontology Organization Team Managed

174 Media · 83 Specimens · Creator: Hopkins, Melanie, Hussaini, Bushra · Managed by: Melanie Hopkins, Bushra Hussaini, Hilary Ketchum

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) contains one of the largest Invertebrate Paleontology Collections in the world, estimated at 5.12 million specimens. It began in 1875 with the purchase of the James Hall collection and has grown steadily through donations and expeditionary field-work by curators including Otto Haas (Mesozoic Cephalopoda), Roger Batten (Carboniferous Gastropoda), Norman Newell (Paleozoic Bivalvia), Niles Eldredge (Devonian Trilobita), Neil Landman (Mesozoic Cephalopoda) and Melanie Hopkins (Paleozoic, Trilobita). The Hall collection contains important type and historical material, including Paleozoic brachiopods, nautiloids and sponges, as well as Cretaceous material from mid 19th century expeditions to the American West. In addition, the Foraminifera and Ostracoda Microfossil collection was established in 1935 and contains 7000 specimen lots keyed into seminal monographs on foraminifera and ostracoda. Many of the sites represented by these specimens are no longer accessible. The AMNH Invertebrate Paleontology collections serves a wide user base, providing material for numerous publications dealing with taxonomy and systematics of various invertebrate groups to students and professional researchers, as well as providing material to K-12 students and the general public via exhibition and educational activities.