Mollusks & Crustaceans - Bell Museum

Mollusks & Crustaceans

More than 18,000 lots of specimens

Malacology is the study of the mollusks, including snails and slugs, clams, octopus and squid. Carcinology is the study of crustaceans, a group of arthropods that includes lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill, barnacles and crabs.

The Bell Museum’s mollusks and crustaceans collection contains nearly 18,000 lots, some of which date to 1875. The majority of specimens are freshwater mollusks collected in Minnesota, and represent an important Upper Midwest collection. All specimens are entered into a database searchable by collection staff.

The collection also contains the former Minneapolis Library collection of Indo-Pacific mollusks. Specimens are stored as shells or in ethanol.

Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas

The Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas is a searchable, public database of animal, plant, and fungal specimens collected from all 87 Minnesota counties. With more than two million records and 500,000 images, this publicly available resource continues to grow. 

Minnesota is home to the convergence of the three largest ecosystems in North America: broadleaf forest, prairie, and boreal forest. More than 9,000 different species reside here and records dating from the 19th century up to the present are hosted in the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas.

Funding for the Atlas is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).

Click here to access the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas

How to request a loan

Zoological Collections loan requests will be evaluated based on merit, potential for specimen damage, and availability and condition of specimens.

Allow at least 4 weeks for approval and processing.

1. Search the Bell Museum Fish Collections on Arctos, and the Mollusk & Crustacean Collections in the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas. Some helpful resources for understanding Arctos search and results are at: https://arctosdb.org/about/quick-tour/
2. Prepare the following:
   1. Your name, email, institution, mailing address, phone, and ORCiD (if requesting a research loan). If you are a student, postdoc, or support staff, also include this information for your PI.
   2. Project title
   3. Project abstract
   4. General methods including the type of data you expect to gather and where the data will be deposited (GenBank, MorphoSource, IsoBank, etc.). Destructive or consumptive requests must include explicit details regarding the amount and nature of material requested, expected damage to the specimens, and demonstration of successful methods for sampling and analysis of similar materials.  Indicate who will be tasked with destructive sampling.
   5. List of specimens and parts you would like to borrow or sample, including whether there is taxonomic or geographic flexibility in the materials that would meet your project needs. Indicate how the Bell Museum specimens fit into your overall sampling scheme.
   6. A statement agreeing to credit the Bell Museum and specimens as outlined in the Loan Conditions below.
3. Email your request to Fish and Invertebrate Curator Kassandra Ford ([email protected]).  If your request involves genetic work, please include Genetic Resources Curator Keith Barker ([email protected]).  Please cc Collections Manager Angela Hornsby ([email protected]).

Loan recipients agree to the following conditions:

1. At minimum, reference specimens by the full triplet catalog number (e.g., JFBM:Fish:1234) in all publicly available materials including articles, appendices, and databases. Where possible, complete GUID urls should be used (e.g., https://arctos.database.museum/guid/JFBM:Fish:1234).
2. Credit the collections as: Bell Museum (University of Minnesota)
3. Loans are made to institutions, not individuals. Do not subsample, alter, or transfer without written approval from the curator. Store specimens in a secure location with proper environmental controls. Notify the curator of specimen damage, misidentifications, and other concerns.
4. Provide to the curator the DOI for each published article or product resulting from use of these specimens, and accession numbers or links to specimen data deposited in databases (GenBank, MorphoSource, IsoBank, etc.).
5. Return specimens in the original condition and with the same or comparable packaging.  Tissue and other consumptive loans do not need to be returned.

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  Meet Kassandra Ford

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  The Mollusk and Crustacean Collection

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Collection Curator

Dr. Kassandra Ford [email protected] The Convergence Lab

PLEASE NOTE: The Bell Museum will be having extensive construction work done in the invertebrate/mollusk collection area during Spring and Summer 2025. Unfortunately, we will not be able to allow any access to this collection until Fall 2025. As soon as access is reinstated, we will remove this notice from the website. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Mollusks & Crustacean Collection Bell Museum, University of Minnesota 100 Ecology Building 1987 Upper Buford Circle St. Paul, MN 55108