The Department of Paleobiology is home to over 40 million specimens, representing fossil invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants from all over the world. Currently, over 450,000 specimen records are available through this online catalog.
Keyword searches on summary fields can be run from the Keywords Search tab. Searches can be run against specific fields from the Search by Field tab (recommended for best results). If you don't know what to search for, try one of the three sample searches in the Quick Browse list below.
The online catalog does not include all of the specimens housed in the department. All type collections are available; however, some biologic collections have not been inventoried and are not available yet. There are currently only a small number of specimens with images associated with them, although we are continuously adding specimen records and images to the database. If you spot an error in our data, please let us know.
See the Help tab to learn more about searching and then exploring your returned results (sorting, exporting, etc.).
![Quick Browse image](/search/images/qbs-synapsida-3451029.jpg) |
Synapsida |
3451032 3450994 3450090 3450092 3450096 3449739 3450486 3449928 3450024 3451029 3450246 |
![Quick Browse image](/search/images/qbs-fossilfish-3011013.jpg) |
Fossil Fish |
3397958 3398305 3398321 3398326 3419853 3421307 3423371 3425157 3585791 3591262 3423486 3423474 |
![Quick Browse image](/search/images/qbs-armoreddinosaurs-3008907.jpg) |
Armored Dinosaurs |
3450306 3450308 3450311 3587158 3450313 3450464 3448753 3342149 3450277 3450290 3440845 3342906 |
Use the By Field search to find specimen data that match values in specific database fields.
Enter a value or choose one from the dropdown lists.
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Click the Search button to initiate a search. Clear resets all fields.
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Some lists are linked, so for example, choosing a Country narrows the choices for
Province/State/Territory, and District/County. Dropdown choices also
narrow as you type, for example, typing diplod in the Family field might narrow the choice to Diplodocidae.
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Check Only Records with Images if you want to restrict the search to records with multimedia content.
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You can force an exact search by surrounding your search text in double-quotes. Exact means exact,
the search is case-sensitive and must match the value of the entire field. An exact search will also
take much longer to complete.
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You will receive a warning when you enter invalid information in the text fields. For example,
Catalog Numbers are composed strictly of letters and numbers; other characters raise a warning.
Enter your keywords separated by spaces and click Search. Records that match your search
terms will be returned.
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You can join terms with OR to match any, e.g. finland OR norway OR sweden
- You can include the terms image(s) or type(s) to find records that have images or that are type specimens.
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To search for Catalog Numbers, replace spaces with dashes, e.g. instead of ABC 12345, use ABC-12345. Do not include any other terms.
Note that searching for common (vernacular) names may not yield the expected results. Associating common names with specimen records is a work in progress.
Keyword search example: aves united states images
The results of your searches can be displayed in Grid (a sortable, customizable table)
or Gallery View (best for reviewing images). Use the Switch button
to cycle between these views.
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You can choose whether to display 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 records at a time.
In Grid View:
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You can choose the columns to display from any column's dropdown menu (mouse into
a column header and click the dropdown icon). Under Columns, click the name
to display or hide the field (you do not need to click the checkbox specifically).
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You can drag a column header to change its order of appearance in the grid.
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You can also drag the edge of a column to make it wider or narrower.
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Click in the expansion
(
)
column to view the full record.
In Gallery View:
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Click the image to view the full record.
See Exporting Results for information on downloading results to, for example,
Excel.
Open the full collection record by clicking the expansion button
(
)
in Grid View,
or anywhere within the image frame in Gallery View. Inverse expansion buttons
(
)
indicate records with multimedia (typically, images).
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In the Record window, metadata for the multimedia content is available when you mouseover the thumbnail.
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Clicking the thumbnail opens the content in your browser or other appropriate application.
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Record windows may be resized or moved within the browser window.
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You may have up to ten Record windows open at any one time.
Sort results in Grid View by clicking the column header (or by choosing Sort from
the column's dropdown menu).
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Sort on multiple columns by consecutively sorting columns in reverse order.
For example, to view results sorted by Country and Province/State, first sort by
Province/State and then sort again by Country.
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For any column you can choose to sort in Ascending or Descending order.
Export all or selected results by clicking the Export Results as CSV button in the
bottom toolbar in Grid
or Gallery View.
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Select individual records for Export by checking the export selection box
(along the left edge of the Grid View grid).
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Clear all selections with the Clear Selections button in the bottom toolbar.
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Results are exported as comma-separated-values, one record per line, which can be saved
to disk or opened directly with applications such as Microsoft Excel.
Here are a few search tips:
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Query results are limited to 5000 records. Avoid very general queries that
return very large numbers of records, e.g. searching for mollusca.
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You can choose which columns to display in the Grid View of your search results.
Move your pointer to any column header and click on the dropdown arrow. Scroll
to Columns and then check or uncheck column names to show or hide those
columns in the grid.
To create a link to specific records at NMNH provide a querystring for:
https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/paleo/?QUERYSTRING
where QUERYSTRING is (use a plus-sign to separate case-insensitive terms):
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One or more CATALOG NUMBERS, e.g.
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paleo/?nb=p-3243
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paleo/?nb=273227+mo-624401-a+pal330209
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The NAME of a specimen, e.g.:
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paleo/?qn=buntonia+van+den+bold
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paleo/?qn=dimetrodon
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The NAME of a TYPE specimen, e.g.:
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paleo/?qt=turborotalia+bermudez
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paleo/?qt=krithe
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One or more SITE/STATION NUMBERS (replace punctuation with an underscore), e.g.:
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paleo/?sn=1055b (for Site/Station Number: 1055B)
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paleo/?sn=24908+loc-82ak55+4296+725f (for: 24908, LOC 82AK55, 4296, or 725F)
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A GENERAL query, searching on any combination of: NAME (qn), FAMILY (fm), TYPE STATUS (ts),
COLLECTOR (cr), COLLECTION (cn), EXPEDITION NAME (ex), SITE/STATION NUMBER (sn),
or WITH IMAGES ONLY (io), e.g.:
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To open the Collections Search to a specific search tab, e.g.
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paleo/?ti=2 (Search by Field)
Tabs are numbered left to right, beginning with zero.
It is best to use only letters, numbers, pluses (+), dashes (-), and commas in your querystrings,
and to avoid other characters.
Please use the Feedback page to report problems you find with the data, or with using
these search pages.