Digital Museum

Museums around the world contain many rare and interesting animal specimens—most of which never go on display. The openVertebrate project aims to give researchers, educators, and students better access to these collections. The project showcases vertebrates—animals with a backbone. Over the past six years, the team behind the project captured 3-D images of more than 13,000 amphibians, reptiles, fish, and mammals using a CT scanner. This imaging machine uses X-rays, a type of electromagnetic radiation, to create pictures of internal body structures. The images are now available in a free online database. “I’m excited to share these remarkable resources with everyone,” says David Blackburn, co-leader of the project and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History.