Data Set Name:South Australian Museum Terrestrial Invertebrates Collection

Short Description: / The collection has Australia-wide and Indo-Pacific representation, plus some world specimens for comparative purposes.The collection comprises 1200000 pinned specimens, 450000 specimens in spirit and 20000 slides. There are 8670 holotypes, of which 5000 are from the A.M. Lea beetle collection. There are 23000 other types. Primary types are held in the general body of the collection. In summary, the entomological collections Class Insecta comprise 662 Australian families and 85,961 known Australian species.
The arachnological collections comprise spiders (50000 specimens in alcohol), mites (25000 slide mounts and 20000 specimens in alcohol), scorpions (5000 specimens in alcohol) and myriapods.
Note: there are also images available for the records from this collection that are on the Atlas of Living Australia
Update Frequency: / Irregularly, up to four times per year
Last Updated: / April 2013
Organisation: / South Australian Museum
File Location: / Full dataset can be downloaded on the Atlas of Living Australia website:

File Format: / CSV
Author: / Alexis Tindall -
Mentors: / Alexis Tindall -
(Will be available at event on the morning of Saturday June 1st)
Themes: / Entomology, invertebrates, biodiversity, wildlife, environment, taxonomy
Licence: / CC-BY-NC

Meta Data (How to use/interpret the data set)

The SA Museum manages this data using the KE EMu collection management system. It is interpreted into the Darwin Core metadata schema (DwC) and semi-regularly exported to the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA: and the Online Zoological Collections of Australian Museums (OZCAM: Information about Darwin Core can be found here: Data sourced from Australian museums on both the ALA and OZCAM should be identical, but on ALA it is combined with observational data from citizen science initiatives and other sources.

Both of those sites make it possible to combine, interrogate and analyse data through web services such as the Spatial Analysis Portal ( In the Spatial Portal ALA data can be combined with meteorological and other environmental data sourced from and made accessible by relevant government agencies.

Data about endangered species is either withheld from online publication, or coordinates or other data are obscured on the ALA and OZCAM. In those circumstances more specific information is available directly from SA Museum collection managers if it is genuinely required for research purposes.

SA Museum data can be downloaded in full from the Atlas of Living Australia, either as a complete set, or broken down into discipline specific parts (e.g. Herpetology, Mammalogy etc). On download the ALA will request an email address (not mandatory) and a reason for download (mandatory) – this is required to track usage of the ALA data to help data providers determine priorities for upload and improvement.

How or why was the data collected?Any known issues or errors in the data?

This data catalogues the biological collections of the South Australian Museum. These specimens have been collected in varied circumstances over the last 150+ years, but the digital databasing of these collections has only happened over the last 20 years or so. The SA Museum is constantly working to add to and improve their database. Across all collections there may be further items that are not yet databased. Data is also constantly being improved and cleaned. Every effort is made to ensure that data is as complete and accurate as possible but it remains the responsibility of the user to determine the data’s fitness for purpose. For fine-grained scientific, environmental or ecological analysis it is recommended that users consult directly with the relevant collections manager to discuss known problems.

Field definitions

See supplied sheet for ALA sourced data field definitions.