Specimen Imaging

Digital imaging of the fossil mammal collection was undertaken as part of a larger initiative to capture images of the AMNH Paleontology collection and make them available on-line, which was funded by NASA through a grant to the AMNH. Between April 2004 and June 2005, a total of just under 2,000 images of specimens from 26 Orders of fossil mammal were captured and made available on-line via the Division's Mesonyx database (also developed using NASA funding).

The majority of the imaging in the fossil mammal collection was undertaken by photographer Vickie Healy, with assistance from Rick Edwards. Images were captured using a Canon D10 digital SLR and saved as archival TIFF files (these large files may be available for research publication purposes on application to the Division). Smaller JPEG images were prepared for publication on the Web.

Large-scale imaging of the fossil mammal collection was discontinued with the end of NASA support in 2005. However, digital imaging continues to be a component of ongoing and future projects, such as the ongoing NSF-funded improvements to the collection.