Ornithology at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology

The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (UMMZ) has a rich history of ornithological research. With over 215,000 specimens of birds, it is one of the largest research collections of birds in North America. Our research group benefits from the UMMZ through our direct use of specimens to address our scientific questions, and through the unique opportunity the UM Research Museums Center provides to interact with a broad community of biodiversity scientists. We contribute to the UMMZ both through our field efforts to collect contemporary material — which becomes part of an invaluable record of biodiversity — and by innovating uses of historical specimens for a variety of applications not imagined at the time of specimen collection many years ago.

The personnel of the Bird Division at the UMMZ include the members of the Winger Lab as well as Collections staff, students and volunteers, and postdoctoral and graduate researchers from other UMMZ-affiliated labs. Read more about us here.