The Australian National Wildlife Collection (ANWC) is a collection of almost 200,000 zoological

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 specimen

Specimen

A specimen is a portion/quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study.BiologyA laboratory specimen is an individual animal, part of an animal, a plant, part of a plant, or a microorganism, used as a representative to study the properties of the whole population of that species or...

s, including skeletons, skins, spirit specimens, birds’ eggs, frozen tissue samples and a wildlife sound library, mainly of vertebrate

Vertebrate

Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...

 animals from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

, which are stored in a secure, climate-controlled facility. It is based at CSIRO

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is the national government body for scientific research in Australia...

 Sustainable Ecosystems Division in the Australian Capital Territory

Australian Capital Territory

The Australian Capital Territory, often abbreviated ACT, is the capital territory of the Commonwealth of Australia and is the smallest self-governing internal territory...

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History

The ANWC was established in 1966, though its origins go back to the late 1950s when scientists in the CSIRO’s Wildlife Survey section were collecting specimens in the course of their work and were concerned that their individual collections should not be dispersed and should be accessible at a central location for long-term security and so that comparative studies could be made. The decision to establish a central facility was made by Harold Frith

Harold James Frith

Harold James Frith AO was an Australian administrator and ornithologist. He was born at Kyogle, New South Wales and studied Agricultural Science at Sydney University. He first joined the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry but later transferred to the Division of Wildlife and carried out extensive...

, Chief of the Division of Wildlife. The founding Curator, later Director, was Richard Schodde

Richard Schodde

Richard Schodde, OAM is an Australian botanist and ornithologist.Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide where he received a BSc in 1960 and a PhD in 1970. During the 1960s he was a botanist with the CSIRO Division of Land Research and Regional Survey in Papua New Guinea...

, who held the post for nearly thirty years. It was formally recognised and named the Australian National Wildlife Collection in 1976 through gazettal by the Government of Australia

Government of Australia

The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...

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