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Collection Profile for:
San Jose State University Vertebrate Collection (SJSU)
San José State University, California's oldest public university, was founded in 1857. San José State Vertebrate Museum’s oldest specimens, including local birds and small mammals, were collected around this time in the late 1800s. From 1957 to 1960, the collection doubled to over 6,000 accessions of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, becoming one of the largest vertebrate museums at any western state college. The collection continued to grow into the 1990s and early 2000s and now serves as an educational resource for regional biodiversity. The collection currently supports several courses in Ecology & Evolution and student research. The collection is currently being digitized to facilitate open-source biodiversity research.
SJSU's Vertebrate Museum & Teaching Collections include: fishes, amphibians & reptiles (wet specimens), birds & mammals (taxidermic skins, mounted, skulls and skeletons). Many specimens locally collected in N. California, endemic to California. Exotic species (mostly donated).
Contacts:
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Curator: Madeline Marens, madeline.marens@sjsu.edu, 408-924-4918
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Director: Jessica Castillo Vardaro, jessica.castillo-vardaro@sjsu.edu
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Assistant Curator: Tess McIntyre, tess.mcintyre@sjsu.edu
Address:
Collection Statistics
- 1,201 specimen records
- 0 georeferenced
- 1,162 (97%) identified to species
- 77 families
- 212 genera
- 319 species
- 355 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)