COLLECTION: ICHTHYOLOGY
- The LACM (Natural History
Museum of Los Angeles County) fish collection is one of ten internationally
recognized ichthyological collections in the United States. The
collection contains an estimated five million specimens, of which
roughly three million are catalogued (167,000 catalogued lots, including
212 holotypes and 8131 paratypes). Our collection emphasis is the
Pacific Rim, with particular strengths in fishes from the Galapagos
Islands, Hawaiian islands, Philippine Islands, the Antarctic, and
the freshwaters of North, Central and South America.
Collection Information: voice: 213-763-3374, fax: 213-748-4432.
COLLECTION: HERPETOLOGY
- The LACM collection
of amphibians and reptiles contains ca contains ca 156,000 catalogued specimens from around the globe (see Collection Database link below). Its special strengths include the southwestern
U.S., Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Costa Rica, Galapagos Islands,
eastern and southern Africa, and Australia. It contains material
formerly in the collections of the University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLA), University of Southern California (USC & AHF),
and California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). In addition
to specimens preserved in ethyl alcohol, there are photographic
slides, and a large collection of herpetological reprints.
Collection Information: voice: 213-763-3374, fax: 213-748-4432.
RESOURCES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
-
On August 16, 2006 a large silvery fish swam into Big Fisherman Cove on Catalina Island. It was identified as an oarfish by researchers from the Wrigley Marine Science Center located in the Cove, who were able to dive with and photograph the fish as it swam. They collected it, froze it, and brought the fish by boat to the mainland where it was transported it to the Natural History Museum. The oarfish is now on display on the first floor.
(Click on photos to view larger version)
More information about it and oarfish in general can be found at the following links:
http://web.mac.com/alemus/iweb/Site/Welcome.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oarfish
http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fishfacts/fish/rglesne.htm
http://fishbase.org/Summary/speciesSummary.php?ID=3267&genusname=Regalecus&speciesname=glesne
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XbeiVOFqQsc;
Giles Mead Library: over 25,000 reprints and books concerning the
systematics, ecology and evolution of fishes. The collection is databased in Endnote 3.0 and Access 2000.
Fitch Otolith Collection: approximately 100,000 recent and fossil otoliths donated by the late John E. Fitch.
Larval Fish Collection: we have representatives of early life history
stages for approximately 20% of our 10,431 species, making us an important center for larval fish research.
Osteological Collection: more than 7,000 skeletons representing a variety
of species from around the world.
Collections database: our catalogued holdings are web-searchable through:
- The LACM Fish Collection is searchable via FishNet2 using the View Specimen Records option at http://www.fishnet2.net/portal-presentation/fishnet2portal?action=home
Because of chronic problems with getting results from FishNet2, here are some temporary instructions that may help after clicking on the link above. After getting to the “FishNet2 Home : Portal Home”,- Make sure “view specimen records” is selected and then click on “Build query”.
- On the resulting page (query form) select “Los Angeles County Museum…”.
- Scroll down, select query conditions. Under “Specify results” select “Custom result set”. Move a few additional fields (besides the “*” ones) such as “country”, “state/province”, and “locality” over to the selected column.
- Increase “Record limit” to at least 1000.
- Click on “Submit query”.
- Then you get a choice if you want to see the results as a map, a table, etc. Click on “View data as table”.
Search the Herpetology Collection via HerpNet
The Combined Index to Herpetology Collections: - The LACM Fish Collection is searchable via FishNet2 using the View Specimen Records option at http://www.fishnet2.net/portal-presentation/fishnet2portal?action=home
- Curator
Christine Thacker, thacker@nhm.org - Collection Managers
Richard F. Feeney, rfeeney@nhm.org
Jeffrey A. Seigel, jseigel@nhm.org - Emeritus
Robert J. Lavenberg
Camm C. Swift, camswift@pacbell.net - Post-Doctoral Fellow
Andrew Thompson, andrew2112@yahoo.com - Research Associates
Jonathan N. Baskin, jnbaskin@csupomona.edu
F. Javier Gago, fgago@glendale.cc.ca.us
Robert N. Lea, rnlea@comcast.net
Margaret Neighbors, mneighbors@prodigy.net
Michael H. Horn, mhorn@fullerton.edu
- Collection Information
voice: 213-763-3374
fax: 213-748-4432