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Services Scientific Data

Computerserver

As integrated research museum, Museum für Naturkunde administers and supports a number of services enabling access to scientific data.

Collection databases

The zoological, palaeontological and mineralogical collections of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin have been recorded in databases that are used for internal management and research purposes.

Scientists as well as interested citizens can research the collection specimens of the museum and related information online at international data portals. Alongside its own online documentation, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin also publishes biological collection data, for example, on the global biodiversity data portal GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) and digital media content relating to collection specimens on the Europeana website.
Museum für Naturkunde Berlin also offers several services relating to scientific data.

Databases at Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is in the process of bringing all existing databases together in one unified database format that will be available online. In the context of the DINA consortium, IT specialists at Museum für Naturkunde collaborate with other European institutions to develop a web-based collection management system at European level.

The Animal Sound Archive at Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

The Animal Sound Archive at Museum für Naturkunde Berlin comprises over 10,000 sound recordings, which makes it one of the largest collection of animal sounds worldwide. More than 25,000 recordings can currently be searched and often also listened to on our online database.
Contact: Dr. Karl-Heinz Frommolt

Taxonomic Services

GloBIS – Global Butterfly Information System

GloBis is a taxonomic database encompassing all existing species of the Lepidoptera families Papilionidae (Swallowtail butterflies) and Pieridae.

Go to GloBIS Homepage

AMMON - Online database of Palaeozoic Ammonoidea

This database comprises comprehensive information about the Ammonoidea, e.g. synonymies, references and cladogrammes.
Contact: Dr. Dieter Korn

Go to AMMON Homepage

NSB - Neptune deep-sea marine microfossil database

This database in Berlin globally synthesizes the occurrences of fossil marine plankton recovered by scientific deep-sea drilling, provides geologic age information for sections, biogeochronologic data for plankton, and lists of species names and synonyms. It was initially developed, and is currently managed by Museum für Naturkunde scientists.
Contact: Dr. David Lazarus

Further information about NSB

Fauna Europaea

This database encompasses all animal species currently known in Europe. It is hosted by Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

Go to Fauna Europeae Homepage

Collection, Observation and Monitoring Data Services

ATBI + M - All Taxa Biodiversity Inventories, Monitoring in the Mercantour and Alpi Marittime natural parks

The ATBI + M database compiles all information gathered for the species observed during the EDIT projects in the natural parks of Mercantour and Alpi Marittime. It includes information on habitat, distribution, time and date of occurrences, as well as abundance and biology.

Got to ATBI+M Homepage

Anymals + Plants

This Smartphone App allows users to document species occurrences/observations. It also provides the user generated data to GBIF. The interface between Anymals + Plants and GBIF is provided by Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Its successor app is called Local Cosmos.

ABCD 3.0 (Access to Biological Collection Data)

ABCD (Access to Biological Collection Data) is an international standard for the exchange of biological collection and observation data. Within the DFG funded project "ABCD 3.0 - A community platform for the development and documentation of the ABCD standard for natural history collections" ABCD will be reviewed and improved in close collaboration with the scientific communities. The hierarchically organized schema of ABCD will change to an ontology-based provision of single concepts suitable for the semantic web. Therewith the containing information is machine-readable and can flexibly be analysed.
Contact: Dr. Mareike Petersen

Go to ABCD 3.0 Homepage

Museum für Naturkunde Berlin as a thematic aggregator

Insect Drawer Portal

This portal will enable users to study the more than 15 million specimens of the entomological collections of Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. This will be possible at the level of single insect drawers. All museums are invited to participate in the portal with their own photographs of insect drawers. The aim is to create an international digital platform giving a world-wide survey of all insect drawer photographs available.
Contact: Falko Glöckler

GeoCASE - Geosciences Collection Access Service

MfN is hosting and maintaining the Geosciences Collection Access Service (GeoCASe), a service based on the ABCD extension EFG for the retrieval of collection data related to geo-scientific collection throughout Europe.
Contact: Falko Glöckler & Dr. Ralf-Thomas Schmitt

Go to GeoCASE Homepage