Richter Museum of Natural History

Collections | Scientific Resources | Carl Richter

The Richter Museum of Natural History contains one of Wisconsin's most significant collections of animal specimens for scientific research and education. The collection is built around an extraordinary gift from Carl Richter, a former resident of Oconto, Wisconsin, and one of the state's most prominent ornithologists. Richter's specialty was birds and bird eggs, and today the Museum ranks among the 10 largest oological (egg) collections in North America.

Currently the Museum is housed in the Laboratory Science Building at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Samples from the collection are displayed in a public exhibit room (LS 203), but most specimens are catalogued and stored in metal cabinets for long term preservation. Access to this scientific collection is available to researchers and to students in UW Green Bay courses such as Ornithology and Mammalogy. The collection also serves as a repository for specimens obtained by biologists and resource managers. Together with voucher specimens from UW-Green Bay researchers, these additions have led to a nearly complete collection of western Great lakes vertebrates and an outstanding resource for scientific reference and teaching.

The Museum sponsors numerous research projects on the fauna of northeastern Wisconsin. Ongoing studies include biological inventories of the Point Sauble Nature Reserve in Lower Green Bay, surveys of colonial nesting birds (gulls, terns, herons, egrets, cormorants, and pelicans) on Green Bay, research on breeding and migrant raptors, analysis of bird and bat mortality at newly constructed wind power facilities in Kewaunee County, and an investigation of mammal subfossils from the Brussels Hill Pit Cave in Door County, Wisconsin.

Thomas Erdman, Richter Museum Curator
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
Dept. of Natural and Applied Sciences
Green Bay, WI 54311
920-465-2713 / erdmant@uwgb.edu
fax: 920-465-2376