To commemorate Darwin Day, the birthday of Charles Darwin, SDSU’s Biology Department and Biodiversity Museum are planning a series of events (below). Please join us! […]
The San Diego State University Biodiversity Museum serves as a repository for biological specimens and an educational center for research, teaching, and community outreach. The Museum's main attraction is the biological collections, comprising over 100,000 physical specimens of birds, fish, mammals, plants, algae, reptiles, amphibians, and terrestrial arthropods.
These specimens are used as teaching tools and research vouchers. Furthermore, the museum features tissue collections of thousands of samples employed in genomic studies. The Biodiversity Museum's Genomics Lab is a shared facility that is used by faculty and students for studies to understand genetic diversity within and among species.
The museum provides imaging systems, microscopes, and computer resources that undergraduate and graduate students, along with faculty members of SDSU's Department of Biology, use for research projects. In addition to student research projects, the museum provides special credit courses in specimen curation and specimen databasing.
The Ornithology Collection contains over 4,000 specimens, with the earliest dated to the late 1800s.
Our combined collections contain genetic material for over 6,500 birds and over 12,000 arachnids.
The Herpetological Collection contains over 14,000 specimens of reptiles and amphibians.
The Herbarium has over 26,000 specimens, 500 algae, and a growing collection of bryophytes and lichens.
The Terrestrial Arthropods Collection houses over 50,000 pinned and alcohol-preserved specimens.
To commemorate Darwin Day, the birthday of Charles Darwin, SDSU’s Biology Department and Biodiversity Museum are planning a series of events (below). Please join us! […]
Dr. Marshal Hedin will co-teach the class, Macrophotography: Photographing Our Smallest Organisms, on Saturday, December 14, 2024, 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. The class will take place […]
Research by former SDSU Ph.D. student, Dr. Andy Gottscho, was recently featured in the Anza-Borrego Foundation’s Desert Research Magazine! Dr. Gottscho studied the evolutionary history […]
The horticulture class at Cuyamaca College, Greenhouse Plant Production, taught by Amy Huie, visited the SDSU Greenhouse and Herbarium on 15 October 2024. The students […]
Participate in California Biodiversity Week: September 7th – 15th Over 180 events are hosted this year by organizations and individuals across California, such as bioblitzes, […]
Ten community members who made significant contributions in the 2024 City Nature Challenge visited the SDSU Biodiversity Museum Saturday 29 June 2024. Drs. Kevin Burns, […]
SDSU Strategic Communications and Public Affairs highlighted the 2024 City Nature Challenge (26-29 April), which for our area was co-sponsored by our SDSU Biodiversity Museum […]
On 9 May 2024, Michael Simpson gave a talk for the California Botanical Society, entitled “Dispersal between American Continents and the Special Case of Popcorn […]
Our newest faculty member in Evolutionary Biology and curator of Reptiles & Amphibians in our Museum, herpetologist Kinsey Brock, describes her research in urban evolution […]
On Friday April 19, 2024, 9:00 am – 12:00 noon, the SDSU Biodiversity Museum hosted a tour of our collections. The tour began in Life […]