Cornell faculty and students are fortunate to have available extensive research collections of animals and plants. The Department of Entomology houses the Cornell University Insect Collection with over 200,000 species represented. A superb collection of some 860,000 herbarium specimens resides in the L. H. Bailey Hortorium, home of plant systematics. There are also a variety of other collections (histology, corals, fungi) at Cornell. Extensive collections of vertebrates are maintained by the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates (CUMV). The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology maintains a mollusc collection housed at the Paleontological Research Institution. These collections are described in more detail below.

The CUMV Ichthyology Collection houses one of the best collections of North American freshwater fishes in the world. One of the top five university research collections in the nation, it consists of about 91,000 lots (more than 1.2 million specimens) and several special collections, including an unusual collection of inter-specific and intergeneric hybrids, and important voucher material for more than 130 species (49 primary type specimens and over 375 lots of secondary types). Nearly 4500 species from 95 countries are represented. Much of the material is in large geographic series, providing the basis for numerous systematic works on North American fish fauna. The collection also includes many marine and freshwater species from around the world.

The CUMV Herpetology Collection consists of approximately 50,000 specimens equally divided between 437 species of amphibians and 588 species of reptiles. Species from eastern North America are especially well represented, but there are a wide variety of specimens from Australia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica.

The Ichthyology and Herpetology Collections are operated by Dr. John P. Friel who was trained in ichthyology at Duke University (Ph.D. 1995, e-mail jpf19@cornell.edu). Dr. Friel's research interests are in the areas of functional morphology, comparative anatomy and phylogenetic systematics of fishes. His projects include high-speed video and electromyographic studies of catfish pectoral girdles and the gonopodia of livebearing fishes, as well as descriptions of new genera and species of catfishes.

The CUMV Ornithology Collection comprising over 50,000 specimens, includes the private collections of Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Frank S. Wright, as well as specimens collected in research by Cornell faculty and graduate students. The approximately 4,400 species in the collection amount to one-half of the known living species of birds, including nearly all species of North American birds. The CUMV Mammalogy Collection of over 20,000 specimens is worldwide in scope, but is particularly strong in mammals of northeastern North America, with all eastern land mammal species represented. It contains one of the largest collections of New York mammals, most collected by Cornell Professor Emeritus William J. Hamilton, Jr. The Ornithology and Mammalogy Collections are operated by Dr. Kimberly S. Bostwick (Ph.D. 2002, University of Kansas, e-mail ksb6@cornell.edu).

The Cornell Malacology Collection consists primarily of the Newcomb and Maury Collections (15,000 lots, collected between 1840 and 1910), and the Nellie Hamilton Collection (4,000 lots, collected between 1940 and 1980). These collections are housed at the Paleontological Research Institution/Museum of the Earth. The Newcomb Collection is worldwide and contains approximately 200 primary types, and consists of specimens from marine, freshwater, and land habitats. The Maury Collection is primarily freshwater bivalves and gastropods and was collected in the Finger Lakes area. The Nellie Hamilton Collection is also worldwide, and consists primarily of marine specimens.

The Malacology Collection is run by Dr. Robin Hadlock Seeley (Ph.D. 1977, Yale University, e-mail rhs4@cornell.edu). Dr. Seeley's research interests include the evolution of gastropod shell morphology, systematics of selected gastropods, and the ecology of marine intertidal communities.