Paleontological Research Institution Collections

The collection of the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) includes 7 million specimens, making it among the 10 largest invertebrate paleontology collections in the United States. Most of the collection consists of invertebrate fossils (representing almost every major group of organisms from around the world over the past 2 billion years), with major strengths in Cenozoic marine mollusks of the Western Hemisphere, Paleozoic marine invertebrates of New York State, and Cenozoic benthic foraminifera of the U.S. Coastal Plains and Caribbean. The collection also includes significant holdings of Recent mollusks. PRI houses all non-botanical fossils and Recent mollusks formerly held at Cornell University. PRI's collection of Type and Figured specimens (also one of the nation's 10 largest) includes more than 15,000 specimens, many of which were published in PRI’s journal, Bulletins of American Paleontology—one of the oldest peer-reviewed paleontological journals in the world.