The Museum's mollusk collection consists of more than 2 million specimens, making it one of the largest in the United States. The 220,000 cataloged lots represent more than 18,000 species. Worldwide in scope and covering all seven living classes of mollusks, our holdings include marine gastropods (45%), land and freshwater gastropods (30%), marine bivalves (15%), freshwater bivalves (5%) and other (5%). The Museum's mollusk collection is primarily dry shells, with some alcohol preserved cephalopod specimens. Most specimens are recent; however there is some Cenozoic fossil material. Our type collection contains more than 1,200 lots.