History
History of the Scripps Marine Vertebrate Collection
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) Marine Vertebrate Collection traces its origins to a small group of fishes gathered by Percy S. Barnhart, Curator of the Scripps Aquarium. These early specimens were displayed for visitors in the museum section of the original Library-Museum Building.
A new era began in 1944 when renowned ichthyologist Carl L. Hubbs joined Scripps as faculty. Hubbs quickly expanded the collection through active fieldwork across southern California. The Marine Life Research Program, launched in 1948 to study the California Current, further enriched the collection with pelagic and oceanic fishes.
In the early 1950s, the development of the Isaacs-Kidd Midwater Trawl enabled the Scripps fleet to collect large numbers of midwater fishes, adding a new dimension to the holdings. During these formative years, Hubbs’ graduate students, Boyd Walker and Ken Norris, among others, played key roles in caring for the growing collection.
After years of advocacy by Hubbs, Richard H. Rosenblatt was appointed the first Curator of Fishes in 1958, and dedicated space was secured in Ritter Hall. Under Rosenblatt’s leadership, the collection expanded globally, incorporating pelagic, midwater, and deep-sea specimens from around the world, along with extensive shore-fish collections from Mexico and Panama.
In 1999, the collection moved to Vaughan Hall, where new NSF-funded compactor shelving significantly increased specimen storage capacity. That same year, Philip Hastings became Curator of Fishes, with H.J. Walker and Cynthia Klepadlo serving as Collection Managers. Ben Frable succeeded them as Collection Manager in 2016.
After more than two decades of stewardship, Hastings retired in 2021, and in early 2023, Dr. Dahiana Arcila was appointed as the third Curator of the Scripps Marine Vertebrate Collection, continuing a proud legacy of over 80 years of exploration, preservation, and discovery in ichthyology.