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MVZ Bird Collection (Arctos)

Specimen Records: 196,442
Media Records: 4,665
iDigBio Last Ingested Date: 2026-02-19

The MVZ bird collection is one of the largest in the United States. It houses over 185,000 catalogued specimens, including 174 holotype and 2 syntypes. The majority of specimens are study skins, but the collection also contains over 21,000 skeletal specimens and 3,200 fluid-preserved specimens. Other types of preparations include flat specimens (wings, skins) and body skins with skeletons ("schmoos"). Tissues, anatomical parts (e.g., syrinx, stomach contents), and parasites are routinely preserved with specimens. Many specimens also are associated with cataloged audio recordings.

Contacts

Name Carla Cicero
RoleEmeritus Staff Curator of Birds
Emailccicero@berkeley.edu
Name Carla Cicero
RoleEmeritus Staff Curator of Birds
Emailccicero@berkeley.edu
Name David Bloom
RoleVertNet Coordinator
Emaildbloom@vertnet.org
Name Dusty McDonald
RoleArctos Database Programmer
Emaildustymc@gmail.com
Name Rauri Bowie
RoleFaculty Curator of Birds
Emailbowie@berkeley.edu
Name Diego Ocampo
RoleStaff Curator of Birds
Emailocampod@berkeley.edu
Name Carla Cicero
RoleEmeritus Staff Curator of Birds
Emailccicero@berkeley.edu
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.
FlagRecords With This Flag(%) Percent With This Flag
idigbio_isocountrycode_added  i194027
98.771
dwc_continent_added  i193680
98.594
geopoint_datum_error  i188343
95.877
rev_geocode_failure  i188343
95.877
rev_geocode_mismatch  i187706
95.553
dwc_datasetid_added  i59375
30.225
dwc_parentnameusageid_added  i59375
30.225
dwc_taxonid_added  i59375
30.225
dwc_taxonomicstatus_added  i59375
30.225
dwc_taxonrank_added  i59375
30.225
gbif_canonicalname_added  i59375
30.225
gbif_genericname_added  i59375
30.225
gbif_taxon_corrected  i59375
30.225
dwc_scientificnameauthorship_added  i59354
30.215
dwc_multimedia_added  i56039
28.527
gbif_vernacularname_added  i53660
27.316
gbif_reference_added  i26336
13.407
geopoint_low_precision  i22334
11.369
dwc_specificepithet_added  i8049
4.097
taxon_match_failed  i5387
2.742
dwc_originalnameusageid_added  i3992
2.032
dwc_family_replaced  i3362
1.711
dwc_continent_replaced  i1685
0.858
dwc_order_replaced  i1030
0.524
dwc_class_replaced  i305
0.155
dwc_phylum_replaced  i305
0.155
dwc_family_added  i296
0.151
dwc_genus_added  i296
0.151
dwc_order_added  i296
0.151
dwc_infraspecificepithet_added  i195
0.099
dwc_genus_replaced  i145
0.074
dwc_country_replaced  i124
0.063
geopoint_0_coord  i44
0.022
dwc_kingdom_suspect  i32
0.016
dwc_kingdom_replaced  i11
0.006
dwc_taxonremarks_added  i9
0.005
dwc_class_added  i2
0.001
dwc_kingdom_added  i2
0.001
dwc_phylum_added  i2
0.001