Field Museum of Natural History (Geology) Fossil Vertebrates Collection

AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES: The Fossil Amphibian and Reptile Collection includes over 7,000 catalogued specimens. The collections strengths include Early Permian fossils from Oklahoma and Texas, and growing collections of dinosaurs, and marine reptiles. A small but significant synapsid collection is included for historical reasons. BIRDS: Field Museum's Fossil Bird Collection is scientifically important but relatively small. Most birds have fragile, hollow-boned, generally small skeletons which are rare in the fossil record. Extinct birds with larger, more heavily built bones such as the "Terror Bird" above are more likely to fossilize. Our collection has a number of strengths including specimens from the Cenozoic of Argentina & Bolivia, fossil birds from the Eocene Green River Formation in Wyoming, Quaternary birds from Iraq, primitive birds from the Cretaceous of western North America, and from the Cretaceous of Madagascar, specimens from the Ice Age deposits of Rancho La Brea California, and moas from New Zealand. FISHES: The fossil fish collection of The Field Museum is one of the two largest in North America. It contains over 30,000 specimens from localities all over the world ranging in age from Ordovician to Pleistocene in age. MAMMALS: Fossil Mammals is the largest of the collections in Vertebrate Paleontology at Field Museum. Ken Angielczyk is Curator of Fossil Mammals and works on nonmammalian synapsids, a collection which is housed in the Fossil Reptile Collection for historical reasons.