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University of Florida Invertebrate Paleontology

Specimen Records: 342,250
Media Records: 0
iDigBio Last Ingested Date: 2026-04-23

The Florida Museum of Natural History’s (FLMNH) Invertebrate Paleontology Collection (IP) is composed of Mollusca (78%), Arthropoda (8%), Echinodermata (6%), Cnidaria (4%), Bryozoa (2%), and combined Brachiopoda, Porifera, Annelida, Ichnofossils and others (2%) largely from the Cenozoic Era (last 65 million years). Approximately 83% of the collection consists of specimens from the southeastern U.S., 15% from the circum-Caribbean and 2% from elsewhere (e.g., Antarctica). Of the Florida fossils 70% are of Pliocene and Pleistocene age representing the richly fossiliferous late Neogene (e.g., Tamiami Formation (including Pinecrest Beds) and the Jackson Bluff, Intracoastal, Caloosahatchee, and Nashua formations). Eocene material collected in central to northern Florida (e.g., Avon Park Formation and Ocala Limestone) and Oligocene and Miocene fossils from around the state (e.g., Marianna and Suwannee limestones, Parachucla, Peace River, Arcadia, Chipola, and Shoal River formations) are well represented. The collection is composed of five main parts: Systematic Collection (TX), Stratigraphic Collection (ST), Teaching Collection (TE), Micropaleontology Collection (MS), and Type and Figured Collection (TP). The largest component is the Systematic Collection, where specimens are housed in phylogenetic order by family, then alphabetically by genus, then species. The Stratigraphic Collection consist of fossils collected in situ. The collection is organized by location, then formation and beds/horizons. The Teaching Collection contains material from the Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. It serves as a resource to educators demonstrating life’s diversity throughout the ages. The Micropaleontology Collection contains primarily foraminifera and ostracods; both highly valuable for use in stratigraphy and paleoecology. The type and figured collection contains specimens cited in scientific publications and is organized alphabetically beginning with species. The strength and significance of our IP Collection resides in the extensive amount of material collected within the last 50 years from over 6,000 sites. Our collections are unique in that they represent many localities no longer accessible due to rapid regional land development. They are also a significant national research resource that serves as the basis, for an active and productive IP Research Program. The entire IP collection (fully cataloged and uncataloged) consists of over 500,000 specimen lots. A conservative estimate would place the total number of specimens in the IP Collection at about 6.0 million with over 2.6 million fully curated, computer cataloged, and available online. As indicated, the number of uncataloged specimens outnumber the cataloged specimens. This reflects both continuous acquisition of material over long periods prior to 1986 when little curation occurred, an active IP field program that began in 1986, and the arrival of numerous, sizable donations (e.g., University of Alabama's Maxwell Smith Collection, Florida State University's Geology Department Collection, Rollins College's Beal-Maltbie Collection, the Florida Geological Survey Collection, Tulane University's E. & H. Vokes Collection, and the collections of Paul and Thomas McGinty, Muriel Hunter and Joe Banks, Victor Zullo, Ernest and Evelyn Bradley, Howard and Miriam Schriner, Jules DuBar, Richard Petit, Sue Stephens, Mary Palmer, Lyle Campbell, Joe Carter, and William Lyons).

Contacts

Name Roger Portell
RoleCollection Manager
Emailportell@flmnh.ufl.edu
Name Office of Museum Technology OMT
RoleOMT
Emailnetadmin@flmnh.ufl.edu
Name Office of Museum Technology OMT
RoleOMT
Emailnetadmin@flmnh.ufl.edu
Name Roger Portell
RoleCollection Manager
Emailportell@flmnh.ufl.edu
This table shows any data corrections that were performed on this recordset to improve the capabilities of iDigBio Search. The first column represents the correction performed. The last two columns represent the number and percentage of records that were corrected. A complete list of the data quality flags and their descriptions can be found here. Clicking on a data flag name will take you to a search for all records with this flag in this recordset.
FlagRecords With This Flag(%) Percent With This Flag
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97.227
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84.463
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84.463
dwc_taxonid_added  i289075
84.463
dwc_taxonomicstatus_added  i289075
84.463
dwc_taxonrank_added  i289075
84.463
gbif_canonicalname_added  i289075
84.463
gbif_genericname_added  i289075
84.463
gbif_taxon_corrected  i289075
84.463
dwc_scientificnameauthorship_added  i268759
78.527
gbif_reference_added  i191558
55.97
dwc_multimedia_added  i101613
29.69
dwc_order_replaced  i94648
27.655
gbif_vernacularname_added  i88521
25.864
taxon_match_failed  i64574
18.867
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18.32
dwc_specificepithet_replaced  i36576
10.687
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8.149
dwc_genus_replaced  i23596
6.894
dwc_genus_added  i13445
3.928
rev_geocode_eez  i12959
3.786
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3.749
dwc_class_replaced  i12434
3.633
dwc_kingdom_suspect  i10161
2.969
rev_geocode_mismatch  i6872
2.008
dwc_order_added  i6538
1.91
dwc_family_added  i6268
1.831
geopoint_datum_missing  i5464
1.596
dwc_stateprovince_replaced  i2311
0.675
dwc_continent_replaced  i1225
0.358
dwc_taxonremarks_added  i1019
0.298
dwc_country_replaced  i695
0.203
dwc_continent_added  i684
0.2
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0.156
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0.063
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0.063
rev_geocode_failure  i204
0.06
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0.03
geopoint_low_precision  i99
0.029
rev_geocode_eez_corrected  i23
0.007
dwc_infraspecificepithet_replaced  i19
0.006
datecollected_bounds  i2
0.001
rev_geocode_lat_sign  i1
0