RON RICHARDS
Chief Curator of Natural History
Curator of Paleobiology
Collection highlights
The Vertebrate Paleobiology and Quaternary Studies Collections of the Indiana State Museum interpret the history of vertebrate life and environments in Indiana.
Vertebrate Paleobiology. The intent is to assemble meaningful collections with which to interpret the history of vertebrate life and environments in Indiana. Vertebrate fossils are acquired primarily by field 
collection and donation. Included is a very large collection of Mississippian-aged shark teeth, dermal denticles and spines from upper Mississippian rocks. The Pennsylvanian-aged collection consists of a couple of hundred partial fish specimens and gastric residue masses from southwestern Indiana and several quadruped track ways that are currently under study. The Museum is the repository for the very rare Pliocene/Miocene-ages terrestrial fauna from Pipe Creek Jr. Quarry, Grant County, Indiana. The Museum curates nearly all of the vertebrate fossil materials from critical Indiana Pleistocene localities, including Harrodsburg, Prairie Creek and Megenity Peccary Cave. The Megenity Peccary Cave Collection (some 10,000 catalogued specimens and lots) is the most extensive of the museum’s scientifically recovered collections, including several extinct and extralimital taxa, and the largest excavated assemblage of Flat-headed peccary remains in North America. This collection is the result of the museum’s long-term investigation of a single Indiana cave. The museum also curates the largest Indiana collection of Late Pleistocene mega faunal materials, including mastodont, mammoth, giant beaver and musk ox material, many the result of museum fieldwork.
Quaternary Collections. These include scientifically collected materials associated with fossil and Holocene vertebrates (pollen, seeds, plant macrofossils, mollusks, insect remains, etc.). They are important materials in reconstructing past environments, and are curated as ancillary collections to the vertebrate fossil collections.