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: May 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

42,854
occurrence records
11,270
taxa
10,570
species

Taxa

Missing and invalid fields

Field Missing Invalid
basisOfRecord 1
0.0%
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters 9,089
21.2%
decimalLatitude 8,866
20.7%
decimalLongitude 8,866
20.7%
eventDate 21,025
49.1%
maximumDepthInMeters 33,832
78.9%
minimumDepthInMeters 33,832
78.9%
occurrenceStatus 42,854
100.0%
scientificNameID 889 161
2.5%

Quality flags

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

Flag Dropped Records
NO_DEPTH 33,832
78.9%
ON_LAND 17,999
42.0%
NO_COORD 8,866
20.7%
NOT_MARINE 4,632
10.8%
DEPTH_EXCEEDS_BATH 2,856
6.7%
NO_ACCEPTED_NAME 281
0.7%
NO_MATCH 274
0.6%
MARINE_UNSURE 97
0.2%
WORMS_ANNOTATION_RESOLVABLE 1
0.0%

Measurement types

DNA derived data