Thanks to all who have answered to questions regarding John du Pont's shell collection while I've been wrestling with my email account!

The nucleus of the DMNH Mollusk collection was a generous donation by the museum's founder, John E. du Pont.  The duPont family continues to support the museum in many ways, but has not been involved in the day-to-day operations or finances of the museum since the early-mid 1980's. Since the original donation, other large private collections have been acquired by the museum.  Donations and exchanges have also occurred with several major museums including the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the United States National Museum of Natural History.  The collection continues to grow through donations, and active research by the curator.

The Mollusk collection is one of the largest in the United States, consisting of more than 250,000 lots (over 2 million specimens).  Land, marine and freshwater gastropods make up approximately 80 % of the collection.  Marine and freshwater bivalves comprise about 20 %.  The remaining molluscan classes (Cephalopods, Scaphopods, Polyplacophorans, Monoplacophorans, and Aplacophorans) make up less than 1 % of the total holdings (but hopefully the cephalopods will grow soon!). Many of the specimens are from the Indo-West Pacific, and the Caribbean. The cataloged collection contains approximately 1,733,000 dry specimens, 53,000 alcohol preserved specimens and 4,500 fossil specimens, and is 89% computerized. We are not on-line yet (much to my chagrin), but are happy to answer queries by email to myself or Leslie Skibinski, the collections manager.  The collections and the 10,000 volume Mollusk Library are available for use by arrangement with collections staff.

Please feel free to contact me with additional questions, database queries, or to volunteer in the collections!

Best wishes,

Liz Shea, Curator of Mollusks
Delaware Museum of Natural History
302.658.9111

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