Beaty Biodiversity Museum, University of British Columbia

The Cowan Tetrapod Collection contains over 40,000 specimens of vertebrates, including mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles.

The collections are primarily from western Canada, especially British Columbia and the Yukon. The collection is particularly rich in mammals and birds, and is home to an impressive array of bird eggs. In particular, the collection is comprised of:

• 18,000 mammal specimens from 540 species
  
• 17,500 birds from 1,650 species
  
• 7,000 bird eggs from 625 species
  
• 1,600 amphibians and reptiles from 180 species
  

Collection Online

The Cowan Tetrapod Collection (CTC) avian collection specimens are listed on ORNIS, the the avian division of VertNet. The Cowan Tetrapod Collection is very proud to be part of this 46-member international multi-museum search engine. Species, localities, or collectors can be searched using conventional database fields or by drawing Google Earth polygons: search ORNIS.

To restrict searches to specimens in the Cowan Tetrapod Collection, please type UBCBBM in the field labelled: "Institution Code and/or Catalog Number", or use the drop-down menu and click on UBCBBM.

A project is underway to bring the mammal, reptile, and amphibian CTC collections online via VertNet this summer. Links to these search engines will be added to this webpage when the project is complete.