Search the Division of Mammals Collections New Search
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The Division of Mammals, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, houses and maintains the world's largest mammal collection with over 590,000 specimens. The taxonomic and geographic scope of the USNM (acronym derived from our former name United States National Museum) mammal collection spans the globe, with especially strong representation from North America, Central America, northern South America, Africa, and southeast Asia. The research value of this collection to mammalogists is evidenced by the 3200 primary type specimens preserved, a number exceeded only by The Natural History Museum, London.
Search the Mammal Collections
Key word searches on any available field can be run from the Keyword Search tab. More specialized searches can be run on specific fields of data from the Search by Field and Whale Collection search tabs. Don't know what to search for? Try one of the three Quick Browse searches below.
Please note that our entire holdings are completely or partially listed in our specimen database at present. There are currently only a small number of specimens with images associated with them. If you spot an error in our data please use the Feedback tab to let us know.
Currently results are truncated at a limit of 5000 records, sorted by scientific name. Please be aware that some searches on single, broad terms may correspond to a far greater number of records, therefore narrowing searches with additional terms is advised. It is also faster!
See the Help tab to learn more about searching and then exploring your returned results (sorting, exporting, etc.).
Quick Browse Searches
|Selected specimens with images||7156400 7225130 7244058 7428241 7507532 7510664 7588997 7591689||Selected specimens from the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838-1842)||7148182 7224859 7224860 7225179 7225180 7225181 7225182 7225183 7225184 7225185 7225186 7225187 7225188 7225189 7225190 7225191 7225192 7225193 7225194 7225195 7225196 7225198 7225199 7226010 7226011||Selected whale strandings from Delaware||7021343 7023422 7073956 7075918 7099885 7214086 7214087 7215842 7216148 7508463 7510670 7515422 7516140 7517883 7518454 7537862 7538010 7571947 7571955 7572370|
Enter your keywords separated by spaces and click Search. Records that match your search terms will be returned.
Note that searching for common (vernacular) names may not yield the expected results. Associating common names with specimen records is a work in progress.
Keyword search example: canidae british columbia types
Use the By Field search to find specimen data that match values in specific database fields. Enter a value or choose one from the dropdown lists.
The results of your searches can be displayed in Grid (a sortable, customizable table) or Gallery View (best for reviewing images). Use the Switch button to cycle between these views.
In Grid View:
In Gallery View:
See Exporting Results for information on downloading results to, for example, Excel or Google Earth.
Open the full collection record by clicking the expansion button () in Grid View, or anywhere within the image frame in Gallery View. Inverse expansion buttons () indicate records with multimedia (typically, images).
Sort results in Grid View by clicking the column header (or by choosing Sort from the column's dropdown menu).
Export all or selected results by clicking the Export Results as CSV button in the bottom toolbar in Grid, or Gallery View.
You can also export all or selected results to a KML file for viewing with Google Earth or other KML viewers, by clicking the Export as KML button. This button is grayed when all or selected results lack latitude/longitude values.
To create a link to specific records at NMNH provide the appropriate unit and querystring to:
where UNIT is:
and QUERYSTRING is (use a plus-sign to separate words):
Here are a few search tips:
Please use the Feedback page to report back any problems you find with the data, or with using these search pages.