Dataset

NIWA Invertebrate Collection

SWP OBIS Open in mapper Explore occurrences

The NIWA Invertebrate Collection (NIC) holds specimens from almost all invertebrate phyla. This is a result of about half a century of marine taxonomic and biodiversity research in the New Zealand region, the South West Pacific and the Ross Sea, Antarctica. New Zealand lies in the South West Pacific, a region that harbours one of the world’s highest species diversity in some marine invertebrate groups with a high proportion of endemic species (that don't occur anywhere else). This huge diversity is, among other things, related to the variable seafloor relief and New Zealand’s ancient geological history. NIWA is fortunate to hold a significant representation of New Zealand’s marine biodiversity in the NIWA Invertebrate Collection at Greta Point in Wellington. This collection has had the taxa matched to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). There are taxa that have no match in WoRMS as thet are temporary or unpublished names. These records do not a scientificNameId field populated. There are also many records that have no position information. Many of these are donated specimens.

Citation: NIWA (2018): NIWA Invertebrate Collection. v1.1. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). Dataset/Occurrence. https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=obisspecify&v=1.1

Published: June 18, 2025 at 22:11

URL: https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=obisspecify

Sadie Mills
NIWA

Kevin Mackay
NIWA

Diana Macpherson
NIWA

164,618
occurrence records
11,170
taxa
7,564
species

Taxa

Missing and invalid fields

Field Missing Invalid
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters 4,188
2.5%
decimalLatitude 4,188
2.5%
decimalLongitude 4,196 160
2.6%
eventDate 4,818
2.9%
maximumDepthInMeters 7,048
4.3%
minimumDepthInMeters 7,158
4.3%
occurrenceStatus 164,618
100.0%
scientificNameID 149
0.1%

Quality flags

The OBIS data quality flags are documented at https://github.com/iobis/obis-qc.

Flag Dropped Records
DEPTH_EXCEEDS_BATH 16,678
10.1%
NO_DEPTH 7,048
4.3%
ON_LAND 5,030
3.1%
NO_COORD 4,356
2.6%
NO_ACCEPTED_NAME 647
0.4%
LON_OUT_OF_RANGE 160
0.1%
NOT_MARINE 156
0.1%
NO_MATCH 140
0.1%
MARINE_UNSURE 53
0.0%

Measurement types

DNA derived data