University of Wyoming Museum of Vertebrates (UWYMV) Bird Collection (Arctos)

Project name: Global Biodiversity Information Facility datasets

Dataset summary : The UWYMV Bird Collection is housed in the Robert and Carol Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center on the campus of the University of Wyoming. It is a part of the Department of Zoology and Physiology. The collection was started in 1894 and Wilbur C. Knight, the state geologist, was appointed as the first curator. The museum's mission was to document and describe Wyoming's avian biodiversity. There was a brief period of active collecting by Knight and Charles W. Gilmore in 1897 and 1898. This was followed by a period of inactivity until the arrival of Ernest Pilsbury Walker as an undergraduate. He collected specimens around the southeastern part of the state from 1910 through 1912. He also contributed his personal collection from Sheridan, Indiana. Beyond sporadic trading and salvaging, the collection has been mostly inactive for the past 100 years until Matt Carling was hired as curator and James Maley was hired as collections manager. The collection was moved into the Berry Center and organized, and it is now undergoing rapid expansion.