The Worm Collection

Pettibone’s polychaete collection when it was originally housed at the National Museum of Natural History. Her polychaete collection is now at the Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland, and houses the over 4,500 catalogued lots (containers holding one or several organisms of the same species) with about 2,400 in backlog waiting to be catalogued. Pettibone’s collections also hold over 450 valuable type specimen, a specimen that represents the first of its species to be named and described.