MSB Bird Collection (Arctos)

Specimen Records: 48,466

Media Records: 215

iDigBio Last Ingested Date: 2026-02-19

The MSB Division of Birds maintains an extensive research collection of over 40,000 bird specimens from western North America and around the world. Taxonomic coverage consists of all avian orders and approximately 85% of avian families. The oldest specimens are from the mid-1870’s, with most collected after the 1950’s. The collection has grown about 6-fold since 1989, and it continues to grow rapidly through salvage and research-driven collecting. Approximately 40% of the specimens have frozen tissues associated with them. Collection highlights include: Synoptic series of the Birds of New Mexico for ID reference and teaching; the personal collection of Dale Zimmerman, donated in 2004, which contributed significantly to the taxonomic and geographic scope of the collection; the collection of Amadeo Rea, upon which the book Once a River was based; raptors and game birds of J.M. Campbell; the J. Stokley Ligon collections (in part); and representative threatened, endangered and extinct species of North America. All but the most recent research specimens are published online via the database Arctos.

Contacts

Name	Christopher Witt
Role	Curator of Birds
Email	cwitt@unm.edu

Name	Christopher Witt
Role	Curator of Birds
Email	cwitt@unm.edu

Name	David Bloom
Role	VertNet Coordinator
Email	dbloom@vertnet.org

Name	Dusty McDonald
Role	Arctos Database Programmer
Email	dlmcdonald@alaska.edu

Name	Andrew Johnson
Role	Collection Manager, Birds
Email	ajohnson@unm.edu

Name	Christopher Witt
Role	Curator of Birds
Email	cwitt@unm.edu

Data Corrected
Data Use
Raw

This table shows any data corrections that were performed on this recordset to improve the capabilities of iDigBio Search. The first column represents the correction performed. The last two columns represent the number and percentage of records that were corrected. A complete list of the data quality flags and their descriptions can be found here. Clicking on a data flag name will take you to a search for all records with this flag in this recordset.

Flag	Records With This Flag	(%) Percent With This Flag
idigbio_isocountrycode_added i	46919	96.808
dwc_continent_added i	46829	96.622
geopoint_datum_error i	39376	81.245
rev_geocode_failure i	39376	81.245
rev_geocode_mismatch i	39375	81.243
dwc_datasetid_added i	28131	58.043
dwc_parentnameusageid_added i	28131	58.043
dwc_taxonid_added i	28131	58.043
dwc_taxonomicstatus_added i	28131	58.043
gbif_canonicalname_added i	28131	58.043
gbif_genericname_added i	28131	58.043
gbif_taxon_corrected i	28131	58.043
dwc_scientificnameauthorship_added i	28063	57.902
gbif_vernacularname_added i	26409	54.49
dwc_multimedia_added i	25564	52.746
dwc_taxonrank_replaced i	22119	45.638
gbif_reference_added i	16697	34.451
dwc_specificepithet_added i	12473	25.736
dwc_originalnameusageid_added i	5420	11.183
dwc_infraspecificepithet_added i	4192	8.649
taxon_match_failed i	3702	7.638
dwc_family_replaced i	3253	6.712
dwc_continent_replaced i	784	1.618
dwc_order_replaced i	482	0.995
geopoint_low_precision i	273	0.563
dwc_taxonremarks_added i	149	0.307
dwc_genus_replaced i	33	0.068
dwc_kingdom_suspect i	10	0.021
dwc_class_replaced i	4	0.008
dwc_phylum_replaced i	4	0.008
dwc_kingdom_replaced i	3	0.006
dwc_taxonrank_added i	3	0.006
dwc_country_replaced i	2	0.004
dwc_genus_added i	2	0.004
dwc_family_added i	1	0.002
dwc_order_added i	1	0.002

Month of	Search	Download	Seen	Records Viewed	Media Viewed
No Use Data for this Recordset

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Recordset

MSB Bird Collection (Arctos)

Contacts