Beaty Biodiversity Museum Marine Invertebrate Collection

The Marine Invertebrate collection of the University of British Columbia was started in the 1940s with alcohol-preserved specimens collected by Dr. C. McLean Fraser and Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan. Primarily used for teaching, the collection eventually grew to several thousand specimens representing the major lineages of invertebrate animals. In 2006, Kelly Norton donated the Alice Stein collection, consisting of thousands of shells and corals. The Marine Invertebrate Collection was further expanded in 2007 with a large donation of shells from Evelyn Hebb Killam. Both contributions represent mostly tropical species and include some spectacular examples of global marine biodiversity, such as giant clams and some rare species of cowries.