• a red-haired young woman lies among an arrangement of skulls on the floor.

    The Skeleton Whisperer

    UVM senior Lily Duerr fell in love with bones in high school and aims to be a paleontologist. As the museum's vertebrate collections manager, she single-handedly revamped our teaching collection. Read her story.

    Photo by Eve Phillips

  • 25 Years. 50,000 Plants.

    In her quarter-century of volunteering at the Pringle Herbarium — ever since she retired from her career as a chemistry lab technician — Hilda White has mounted more than 50,000 specimens. Read an interview with her in Northern Woodlands.

  • a taxidermy catamount/cougar on display in a case with a green base, flanked by interpretive panels

    The Cat Comes Back

    Our restored catamount (aka eastern cougar), part of our collection since before 1898, is now on display in UVM's Davis Center in a collaborative exhibit between our museum  and the Vermont Historical Society. Come see for yourself!

  • labeled shrew specimens in a drawer

    Critical Need for Collections in Infectious Disease Research

    Curator Bill Kilpatrick and collaborators published in mBio on the importance of natural history collections to the study of infectious diseases. Read about it in the Washington Post and The Scientist.

  • butterfly specimens in a case, with the title "Nature Catalogued"

    Natural history collections are "vitally useful" to conservation

    The museum's collections provide answers to Vermont conservation experts.

    Photo by Joshua Brown

  • Kilpatrick holding mounted two-foot long rhino horn

    Stolen Rhino Horn Recovered, Returned to University

    Curator of Vertebrates Bill Kilpatrick secured the horn after its restitution.

     

    Photo by Brian Jenkins

Half a million animals, plants, and fungi

The museum holds specimens from around the world, while also serving as the official state archive of Vermont's flora and fauna. Scholars and students go to our collections to answer key questions about the diversity and origins of life on Earth.

Our vision is to promote understanding of the natural world and investment in sustaining it through research, curatorial work, and outreach. By bringing people into contact with natural diversity, the museum seeks to provide a broad audience with the understanding that the viability of human society depends on ensuring the future of natural systems.

 

How Do You Use Collections in Your Research?

In this series, scientists around the country explain how museum collections are vital to understand how our world is changing.

Read their stories

Pringle Herbarium

Founded by Cyrus Pringle in 1902, it holds 360,000 sheets and is the second largest herbarium in New England.

Thompson Collections

Founded by Zadock Thompson in 1826, the zoological collections hold nearly 150,000 specimens, 90% of which are insects.

dew-covered spiderweb

Vermont Collections Network

Now live! One landing page with access to every natural history collection in the state, totaling at least 800,000 specimens.