This catalog has information on localities and catalogued
specimens held by the University of California Museum of Paleontology.
Currently, there are
534,973
specimens and 111,820
localities in this catalog.
Scope
The scope of this catalog is limited to UCMP records that
have been catalogued and digitized.
The museum has many specimens
that are not yet catalogued but are available for research.
In addition, some data maintained by the UCMP are not available on-line but
are available to qualified researchers by request. For more information
about the holdings of the museum, visit UCMP's
collections pages.
Notice and Disclaimer
UCMP data records may be used by
individual researchers or research groups, but they may not be repackaged,
resold, or redistributed in any form without the express written consent of
the UCMP director or designate. Please read the entire
notice and disclaimer before using UCMP data.
About the system
This system uses the Apache Web server running on Red Hat Linux,
the mySQL database with the Perl DBI module, along with in-house Perl scripts.
The HTML query forms access Perl programs which create an
SQL (Standard Query Language) query to the database, deliver the query, and process the
results, creating a new web page to display the records that matched.
This system is based on other systems developed by the
the BSCIT group of the Berkeley Natural History Museums,
such as
CalPhotos, the
Essig Museum of Entomology, and
AmphibiaWeb.
Records in the results set link to other resources such as
the CalPhotos database
and the BerkeleyMapper.
Queries are issued to "live" data -- new catalog record are added to the
same database that is used for queries, and updates to records
are immediately accessible. However, some data is not made available via the
public web forms. Qualified researchers can make arrangements
with the UCMP collection managers to gain access to this data.
Searching the UCMP Collections Catalog
Data availability varies across the Vertebrate,
Invertebrate, Microfossil and Paleobotany sections of the museum. In
general, available datasets include collecting information (when the
specimen was collected and by whom); taxonomic information (may include
class, order, family, genus, subgenus, species, and status), locality information
(age and location of the site), and citation information.
Specimen search
Use the simple or advanced specimen search forms to search for
information on catalogued specimens, or browse a list of taxonomy.
Related locality records are
linked from specimen records, as are photos, where available.
Locality search
Use the locality search form to retrieve
information about localities where UCMP specimens have been collected,
or browse the list of localities by country or U.S. states.
Related specimen records are linked from locality records where available.
Note that there are thousands of locality records for
which there are no catalogued specimens, particularly in the invertebrate
and microfossil collections. If you are interested in a particular
geographic region, a locality search may be more fruitful than a specimen
search.
Photo search
Access photos in the UCMP on-line image collection
using this form. These images are linked with related specimen and
locality records, and are also accessible through
CalPhotos.
Credits
The original web-based catalog search interface was developed through a
collaboration between the UCMP and the UC Berkeley Digital Library Project (DLP).
Members of the development team were
Ginger Ogle and Joyce Gross Programmers, DLP,
Colleen Whitney Webmaster, UCMP,
Diane Erwin, Pat Holroyd, David Haasl
and Ken Finger Museum Scientists, UCMP.
The BerkeleyMapper
mapping application, added in June 2004, was
developed at the Berkeley
Natural History Museums (BNHM). John Deck and Colleen Whitney
adapted the display to meet the needs of UCMP.
In 2006, the UCMP database was re-engineered to enable full on-line
access to the UCMP catalog for queries
as well as for collection management. This new system
was designed and developed by Programmer Ginger Ogle from the
BSCIT group in the
Berkeley Natural History Museums and by
UCMP Museum Scientists Diane Erwin, Pat Holroyd, David Haasl and
Ken Finger, and UCMP Assistant Director
Mark Goodwin.
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