Search the Burke Museum's collections
The Burke Museum's collection consists of more than 16 million biological, geological and cultural objects from Washington state and around the world; over 10 million are accessible through our online database.
Find Burke collections from your area
The Burke cares for collections from across Washington state (and around the world), spanning well over 100 years of collecting efforts. Explore their distribution through these interactive maps.
Burke collections from Washington state
Maps showing the distribution of Burke Museum digitized specimens and artifacts from Washington state.
Ethnology Collection
The Ethnological Collection includes objects dating from the late 1700s to the present, acquired from collectors and Native artists. The Burke Museum's world-renowned ethnological collections number over 48,000 objects and more than 50,000 archival records.
Herbarium Collection
The WTU Herbarium's total holdings number more than 650,000 specimens of vascular and nonvascular plants, fungi, lichens and marine algae with the oldest specimens dating to the late 1800s.
Herpetology Collection
To search Burke specimens only, select “Amphibian and reptile specimens” under “Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (UWBM)” in the drop-down menu for Collection.
Ichthyology Collection
The Burke’s Ichthyology Collection includes more than 11 million specimens, including adults, juveniles, larvae, eggs, skeletons, tissues, otoliths and scales. Roughly 98% of the Ichthyology Collection is cataloged, databased and available to search.
Malacology Collection
The Malacology (shell) Collection at the Burke Museum includes approximately 75,000 specimen lots. We still are in the process of digitizing the collection, but many are available in the online collections database.
Mammalogy Collection
The Mammalogy Collection database includes over 55,000 specimen records, including more than 9,000 specimens that have tissue samples archived in the Burke’s Genetic Resources Collection.
Ornithology Collection
The Ornithology Collections at the Burke Museum maintains a comprehensive collection of specimens, including study skins, spread wings, bird skeletons, egg sets, nests and frozen tissue samples. Approximately 99,550 individual records from the collections are accessible through this database.
Otoliths Collection
This collection is comprised of roughly 2.4 million pairs of fish otoliths, representing 83 species in 41 genera and 17 families.
Paleontology Collection
The Vertebrate Paleontology Collection is global in scope and includes over 62,000 fossils from over 2,500 localities from all seven continents. The Burke's paleontological collections are accessible and searchable in this online database.