ANU Archaeology and Natural History Osteological Reference Collection

The ANU Department of Archaeology and Natural History maintains a collection of animal skeletons for use in identifying bones recovered from archaeological or natural death sites. We have an extensive fish collection with specimens from Australian waters as well as samples from Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and other locations. Our mammal and bird collection includes a variety of specimens from Australia and nearby islands. The collection is available to students and researchers. See ANH Osteology Collection for more information. We also have a substantial mollusc shell collection, but the catalog is currently under revision and is not available online.

This web site provides information on the materials included in the ANH osteological collection. It lists all specimens included in the amphibian, bird, fish and reptile collections. Mammals will be added soon. In some cases, images of the bones are also available. This site is intended to be used both by researchers who want to determine whether the ANH collection includes specimens of interest to their research and by on-site users of the collection to determine the ANH catalog numbers of particular specimens. See ANH OC help for detailed descriptions of the data fields and help with using this site.