Collections

The section of Birds complete database has 205,720 records of specimens that were catalogued into the collection since the inception of the Carnegie Museum. However, over 15,000 of these specimens have been exchanged over the years to other institutions to fill in gaps in our collection, and an additional number have been given away to the education department or other educational institutions and a few were discarded. As a result, we currently house roughly 188,000 specimens.

The birds in the collection have a number of preparation types or styles and each were catalogued separately into the collection. The majority are standard study skins with roughly 154,000 of this type of specimen representing around 5700 different species. The second largest component is the skeleton collection with approximately 15,600 specimens, of which 5,500 of these have an accompanying dried spread wing with some also having a dried spread tail. The third largest subset is the Oology Collection which has about 9930 egg sets. Rounding out the collection are the fluid-preserved specimens of 6,700, taxidermy mounts 1,300 and a few nests.

The greatest geographical strengths of the collection are in New World birds. Carnegie Museum holds major collections from nearly every part of North America and one of the largest in the world from the Eastern Arctic. Most areas of Central and South America are well represented with collections of major importance from Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Isle of Pines, Colombia, Venezuela, French Guiana, Amazonian Brazil, Bolivia, and northern Argentina. Our most important Old World collections are from former Yugoslavia, New Zealand, the Philippine Islands and the equatorial African countries of Cameroon, Angola, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

Type Collections

The collection houses 519 holotypes, 40 syntypes, 25 paralectotypes, and an additional 131 paratypes. In the early years of the museum an attempt was made to gather topotypes and close to 700 birds are designated in the database.

Database

The collection has been completely databased since the mid-1980s and is currently maintained in a Microsoft Access format. Data from the collection can only be obtained by contact with the curator, Bradley C. Livezey, either by hard copy letter on institutional stationary or by email at livezeyb@carnegiemnh.org. In the latter case, please copy the collection manager at rogerss@carnegiemnh.org. Please send a brief abstract of the study the data would be used for in order for the curator to decide on whether to release the data. Data are for one-time use and are not to be re-posted in another format.

Museum Library (Section of Birds)
The Section of Birds library is housed with the main Natural History Library along with general and multidisciplinary works. There are over of 3,700 books and monographs on ornithology, 500 pamphlets and booklets, numerous journal titles. The section houses a number of reprints but those data have not been captured. Please visit the Museum Library site for information on accessing titles.

Titles in the Museum Library may not be loaned, and must be used onsite.