The CUMV Ichthyology Collection was established shortly after the founding of the university in 1865. Many of our earliest specimens were collected by well known researchers such as David Starr Jordan, Carl Eigenmann, Charles Frederick Hartt and Seth Meek. By 1935, the collection contained only about 3,000 lots, but during the following 35 years, Edward Raney and his students built the finest collection of eastern North American freshwater fishes in existence today. In Collette and Lachner's (1976) report on Fish Collections in the United States and Canada, the CUMV Ichthyology Collection ranked thirteenth among all collections and fourth among National Resource Centers in North America. Today the collection contains over 91,000 cataloged lots and more than 1.2 million specimens. Over 320 families and 4500 species from 95 countries are represented. There are also 49 holotypes and approximately 375 secondary types housed in the collection. While the majority of the collection consists of alcoholic specimens, it also contains a growing number of skeletal specimens and tissue samples associated with voucher specimens.

Although there is worldwide representation of both marine and freshwater species, the bulk of the collection is strongly representative of freshwater fishes from eastern North America and has formed the basis for numerous systematic works on the North American fish fauna. Much of the material is in large geographic series, and many sites have been sampled repeatedly through extended periods of time. Some specimens are from the original New York State Biological Survey (1926-39). Many of our collections are from the highly industrialized Northeast and Middle Atlantic states and thus document earlier faunas in habitats now greatly altered, and we have repeated samples through time from many of these localities. Over 500 publications have been based on specimens in the CUMV Ichthyology Collection and over 40 doctoral thesis were written by students associated with the collection.

The primary activities for the last several years has been modernization of our storage and laboratory facilities and collection building efforts directed toward African freshwater fishes.

Data for specimens and tissues contained in the CUMV Ichthyology Collection can be searched via the FishNet 2 data portal.

Recent publications based on specimens from the CUMV Ichthyology Collection

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Blanton, R.E., and R.E. Jenkins. 2008. Three new darter species of the Etheostoma percnurum species complex (Percidae, subgenus Catonotus) from the Tennessee and Cumberland river drainages). Zootaxa, 1963:1-24.

Carlson, R.L. 2008. Morphological change in the Tessellated Darter (Etheostoma olmstedi) following the introduction of the Banded Darter (E. zonale) to the Susquehanna River Drainage. Copeia, 3:661-668.

Day, J.J., R. Bills, and J.P. Friel. 2009. Lacustrine radiations in African Synodontis catfish. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 22:805–817.

Freeman, M.C., B.J. Freeman, N.M. Burkhead and C.A. Straight, 2008. A new species of Percina (Perciformes: Percidae) from the Apalachicola River drainage, southeastern United States. Zootaxa, 1963, 25-42.

Friel, J.P. 2008. Pseudobunocephalus, a new genus of banjo catfish with the description of a new species from the Orinoco River system of Colombia and Venezuela (Siluriformes: Aspredinidae). Neotropical Ichthyology, 6(3):293-300.

Friel, J.P., and J.P. Sullivan. 2008. Synodontis woleuensis (Siluriformes: Mochokidae), a new species of catfish from Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, Africa. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 157:3-12.

Friel, J.P., and T.R. Vigliotta. 2008. Atopodontus adriaensi, a new genus and species of African suckermouth catfish from the Ogooué and Nyanga River systems of Gabon (Siluriformes: Mochokidae). Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 157:13-23.

Fermon, Y., J.P. Friel, H.H. Ng and D. De Weirdt. 2008. Mochokidae. In Stiassny, M. L. J., G. G. Teugels, and C. D. Hopkins (eds.). The Fresh and Brackish Water Fishes of Lower Guinea, West-Central Africa (Volume 1). IRD Éditions, Paris, pp. 698-752.

Hopkins, C.D., Lavoué, S, and Sullivan, J.P . 2008. Mormyridae. In Stiassny, M.L.J., Teugels, G.G., and Hopkins, C.D.  (eds.). The Fresh and Brackish Water Fishes of Lower Guinea, West-Central Africa (Volume 1). IRD Éditions, Paris, pp. 220–334.

Lavoué, S., Arnegard, M.E., Sullivan, J.P. and Hopkins, C.D. 2008. Petrocephalus of Odzala offer insights into evolutionary patterns of signal diversification in the Mormyridae, a family of weakly electrogenic fishes from Africa. Journal of Physiology-Paris, Volume 102:322-339.

Lavoué, S., Sullivan, J.P., Arnegard, M.E. and Hopkins, C.D. 2008. Differentiation of morphology, genetics and electric signals in a region of sympatry between sister species of African electric fish (Mormyridae). Journal of Experimental Biology, 21: 1030-1045.

Near, T. 2008. Rescued from Synonymy: A Redescription of Percina bimaculata Haldeman and a Molecular Phylogenetic Analysis of Logperch Darters (Percidae: Etheostomatinae). Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, 49(1):3-18.

de Santana, C.D. and R.P. Vari, 2009. The South American Electric Fish Genus Platyurosternarchus (Gymnotiformes: Apteronotidae). Copeia, 2009(2):233-244.

Sullivan, J.P., and Hopkins, C.D. 2009. Brachyhypopomus bullocki, a new species of electric knifefish (Gymnotiformes: Hypopomidae) from northern South America. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 158:183-192.

Sullivan, J.P., Peng, Z., Lundberg, J.G. and Shunping He, J.P. 2008. Molecular evidence for diphyly of the Asian catfish family Amblycipitidae (Teleostei: Siluriformes) and exclusion of the South American Aspredinidae from Sisoroidea. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 157:51–65.

Switzer, J.F., and Wood, R.M. 2009. Etheostoma erythrozonum,  a new species of darter (Teleostei: Percidae) from the  Meramec River drainage, Missouri. Zootaxa 2095:1-7

Vigliotta, T.R. 2008. A phylogenetic study of the African catfish family Mochokidae (Osteichthys, Ostariophysi, Siluriformes), with a key to the genera. Proc. Acad .Nat. Sci. Phila., 157:73-136.