Vertebrate Collection

Natural history collections at universities are an important resource for undergraduate and graduate education, as well as research. The University of Calgary’s diverse vertebrate collection (known as the Museum of Zoology until 2008) contains over 16,000 fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, and mammal specimens.

Originally housed in the Science A building, the collection was relocated in the mid-90s to ground floor spaces in Biological Sciences. A large room houses skins, skeletons, and mounted preparations such as a sea lion, ostrich, leopard and a variety of birds. Shelves in a small room adjacent to the teaching lab are filled top to bottom with jars of preserved specimens.

Five technicians have been stewards of the collection since the 1970s – each making substantial contributions to its growth and the quality of preservation.

The first technician Bruce Jones worked closely with Dr. Tim Myers, an ornithologist, to produce the majority of the collection’s stuffed birds. Many of the birds mounted in taxidermic-style mounts came from the Glenbow Museum when it divested itself of this kind of material. Barry Curtis followed Bruce and helped expand the mammalian skeletal collection, including many of the mounted skeletons. The third technician, Ann Hickie, focused on teaching materials, ensuring many of the skulls were stored in protective plexiglass boxes for use in student labs.  Warren Fitch, the fourth technician, focused on bird skeleton material.

Arminty Carson is the current collection technician, taking over from Warren Fitch in 2020. 

The extensive vertebrate collection includes specimens from a large 1960s provincial fish survey by R. E. Peter, as well as donations from the Calgary Aquarium, which operated in the city from 1960 to 1972.  Many of the exotic specimens were donated by the Calgary Zoo.

A number of biology courses use the collection in their labs, and graduate students and faculty members access it for their research projects. Specimens are also loaned internally to departments such as art, anthropology, geology, and engineering. External loans are difficult because of the fragile nature of the specimens. However, researchers have come from as far as Japan to study material in the collection.

Did you know?

The biggest skull in the collection is that of a five-year old elephant, while the smallest is that of a pygmy shrew. The heaviest specimen in the collection is the skull of a rhinoceros.

The collection includes about 300 vertebrate fossils. Many are from the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation of southern Alberta and were collected and prepared by Dr. Betsy Nicholls during the late 1970s and early 1980s.