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: October 02, 2025 at 00:18

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

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

41,583
occurrence records
10,820
taxa
10,001
species

Taxa

Missing and invalid fields

Field Missing Invalid
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters 8,851
21.3%
decimalLatitude 8,628
20.7%
decimalLongitude 8,628
20.7%
eventDate 20,481
49.3%
maximumDepthInMeters 32,974
79.3%
minimumDepthInMeters 32,974
79.3%
occurrenceStatus 41,583
100.0%
scientificNameID 942 41
2.4%

Quality flags

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

Flag Dropped Records
NO_DEPTH 32,974
79.3%
ON_LAND 17,632
42.4%
NO_COORD 8,628
20.7%
NOT_MARINE 4,643
11.2%
DEPTH_EXCEEDS_BATH 2,771
6.7%
NO_ACCEPTED_NAME 271
0.7%
NO_MATCH 194
0.5%
MARINE_UNSURE 98
0.2%
WORMS_ANNOTATION_RESOLVABLE 1
0.0%

Measurement types

DNA derived data