About

The Illinois Natural History Survey Crustacean Collection is one of the largest state collections of crustaceans in North America.

The collection contains primary types of 13 species and secondary types of 20 species. It houses over 135,000 specimens and 17,500 lots of approximately 400 species in 30 families. Almost all specimens are from North America. About half of the collection comes from Illinois, with most of the remainder from the southeastern United States.

The best represented groups are crayfishes, shrimps, scuds, slaters, and pill bugs. A small number of marine crustaceans from the North American coastline are also part of the holdings. In addition, the collection maintains a tissue collection that contains high-quality samples from a portion of our vouchered specimens, primarily those collected after 1998.