Illinois Natural History Survey - Mollusks (ILLS-M)

The Illinois Natural History Survey Mollusk Collection contains over 190,000 catalogued specimens in nearly 50,000 lots, most of which were collected in Illinois and the southeastern United States. The collection is about 95% freshwater bivalves and gastropods (mussels, fingernail clams, and snails), 1% land snails and 4% marine gastropods, almost all of which are cones. Most of the specimens were collected as a result of various faunal surveys conducted by INHS biologists from the late 1800's until the present. The early collections were made by such naturalists as John Wesley Powell, Robert Kennicott, Richard E. Call, William A. Nason, Frank C. Baker, Robert E. Richardson, and Charles A. Hart. The largest and best documented collection of landsnails at the INHS was compiled by Thural D. Foster and organized by Frank C. Baker as part of his study on the "Landsnails of Illinois" published in 1939. The Baker snail collection numbers 1632 lots containing 11,970 specimens.

Contact: Kevin S. Cummings, Mollusk Curator (ksc@inhs.illinois.edu)

Home Page: http://wwx.inhs.illinois.edu/collections/mollusk

Collection Type: Preserved Specimens

Management: Data snapshot of local collection database

Digital Metadata: EML File

Usage Rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

• 8,191 occurrence
• 7,672 (94%) georeferenced
• 2,964 (36%) with images
• 7,696 (94%) identified to species
• 10 families
• 11 genera
• 95 species
• 95 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)