Collections
The biological collections that are the centrepiece of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum were each started by a different collector, some as early as the 1910s. Over the decades, myriad researchers added to the collections, which grew to contain over 2 million specimens.
Cowan Tetrapod Collection
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection’s over 40,000 specimens of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles represent every continent on Earth, with most coming from western Canada.
The Herbarium
The Herbarium is the largest collection of plants and fungi in western Canada, with more than 660,000 specimens. The world’s largest collection of BC plants and Canada’s largest collection of bryophytes are housed in the Herbarium. The specimens that it contains are critical to the identification and conservation of plant biodiversity in BC and beyond.
Spencer Entomological Collection
The Spencer Entomological Collection holds over 600,000 specimens that highlight the diversity of British Columbia's insects and other arthropods, as well as jumping spiders from around the world.
The Fish Museum
The Fish Collection boasts over 800,000 specimens, with particularly spectacular and important holdings from Canada, the Aleutians, the Malay Archipelago, Mexico, the Galapagos, Panama, and the Amazon.
Marine Invertebrate Collection
The Marine Invertebrate Collection contains thousands of specimens representing the major lineages of animals, such as cnidarians, molluscs, annelids, crustaceans, echinoderms, and sponges.
Fossil Collection
The Fossil Collection contains over 20,000 specimens that range from recent shells to 500-million-year old fossils of blue-green algae, as well as specimens from British Columbia’s famous Burgess Shale.
Field Notes
