Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

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The Valley Life Sciences Building , in which the MVZ is also located
Joseph Grinnell, first director of the MVZ (1904)
Image of a rock mountain chicken from the MVZ archive

The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) is a zoological museum in Berkeley located on the University of California campus in the Valley Life Sciences Building. It was founded in 1908 and houses an extensive vertebrate collection with a focus on North America .

history

The museum was created on the initiative of the philanthropist and paleontological collector Annie Montague Alexander . In 1907 she wrote a letter to Benjamin Ide Wheeler , then President of the University of California, in which she promised an annual donation of $ 7,000 for research into mammals, birds and reptiles on the west coast of North America. In return, she requested the establishment of a natural history museum in a fire-proof, electrified building, over which she claimed control for the next seven years. She also proposed Joseph Grinnell (1877-1939) as first director.

Wheeler agreed and the MVZ opened in 1908. Alexander invested a total of over $ 750,000 in its expansion and donated 20,564 zoological and fossil specimens that she had collected or purchased herself. She took an active part in organizing the museum for three decades.

In 1940 Alden Holmes Miller took over the management of the museum and held the position of director until his death in 1965.

Collections

The MVZ's collection includes over 640,000 specimens of amphibians , reptiles , birds , bird eggs and mammals as well as over 50,000 tissue samples from these vertebrates.

The collection is used exclusively for scientific research and is only accessible to the public once a year on an open day.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of MVZ mvz.berkeley.edu, Accessed 13 April 2012
  2. ^ Keir Brooks Sterling, Richard Harmond, George A. Cevasco, Lorne F. Hammond: Biographical dictionary of American and Canadian naturalists and environmentalists. Greenwood, 1997, ISBN 978-0313230479 , p. 16.
  3. ^ Alden Holmes Miller, Zoology: Berkeley University of California, Retrieved April 13, 2012
  4. ↑ collections of MVZ mvz.berkeley.edu, Accessed 13 April 2012

Coordinates: 37 ° 52 ′ 16.4 "  N , 122 ° 15 ′ 43.2"  W.