Dataset

DMNS Marine Invertebrate Collection (Arctos)

OBIS USA Open in mapper Explore occurrences

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science Marine Invertebrate Collection dates to the early 1900s. It is a diverse collection of worldwide specimens, the largest portion being marine shells. It also has specimens of echinoderms, corals, sponges, crustaceans, and other invertebrates. Despite its name, it includes a substantial collection of land and freshwater snail shells. The collection contains nearly 50,000 lots, of which more than half are databased in Arctos with more being added to the database each week. More than half of the databased lots are geolocated, and over 1,000 specimen records have images. Specimens in the collection represent nearly 6,000 species in over 450 families. Specimens come from over 150 countries with the majority from the United States and most of those from Florida and Hawaii. All specimens have been donated to the Museum by shell collectors, including many self-collected specimens.

Citation: Denver Museum of Nature & Science Marine Invertebrate Collection

Published: July 02, 2026 at 00:09

First registration: May 25, 2022 at 09:04

License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC) 4.0 License

URL: https://ipt.vertnet.org/resource?r=dmns_inv

Contacts:

Paula Cushing
Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Andrew Doll
Denver Museum of Nature & Science

David Bloom

Dusty McDonald
University of Alaska Museum

Phyllis Sharp
Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Bryan Johnson
Denver Museum of Nature & Science

42,827
total submitted occurrences
30,004
accepted occurrences
11,281
taxa
10,589
species

Taxa

Missing and invalid fields

Field Missing Invalid
basisOfRecord 1
0.0%
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters 9,061
21.2%
decimalLatitude 8,838
20.6%
decimalLongitude 8,838
20.6%
eventDate 21,000
49.0%
maximumDepthInMeters 33,806
78.9%
minimumDepthInMeters 33,806
78.9%
occurrenceStatus 42,827
100.0%
scientificNameID 890 156
2.4%

Quality flags

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

Flag Dropped Records
NO_DEPTH 33,806
78.9%
ON_LAND 18,001
42.0%
NO_COORD 8,838
20.6%
NOT_MARINE 4,635
10.8%
DEPTH_EXCEEDS_BATH 2,857
6.7%
NO_ACCEPTED_NAME 280
0.7%
NO_MATCH 262
0.6%
MARINE_UNSURE 98
0.2%
WORMS_ANNOTATION_RESOLVABLE 1
0.0%

Measurement types

DNA derived data