Particular strengths of PRI’s paleontological collections include fossil plants and insects from the Pennsylvanian (Upper Carboniferous) of Illinois, a large collection of Midwestern Pleistocene mollusks, the historically significant Milton Sanderson collection of Early Miocene amber from the Dominican Republic, and a rapidly growing collection of fossil insects from across the globe, ranging in age from Carboniferous to Pleistocene.

The Annelida Collection at the Illinois Natural History Survey is perhaps the largest state collection of freshwater oligochaetes in the country, holding 350,000 specimens (over 7,000 lots, or collections).

The INHS Bird Collection consists of over 3,000 specimens of over 200 species. Much of the INHS collection dates from the 1950s through the 1970s and is almost exclusively from Illinois.

The collection contains primary types of 13 species and secondary types of 20 species. The collection contains over 135,000 specimens and 17,500 lots of approximately 400 species in 30 families. Almost all are from North America.

The INHS fish collection contains more than 1.3 million catalogued specimens and 170,000 lots, which makes it one of the largest collections of preserved fishes in the US, and the 6th largest collection of Neotropical fishes in North America.

The Illinois Natural History Survey (ILLS) Fungarium contains over 70,000 specimens including approximately 12,000 basidiomycetes, 25,000 ascomycetes, 15,000 imperfect fungi, 11,000 lichens, 1,200 zygomycetes and oomycetes, and 1,500 myxomycetes. The collection also possesses 995 type specimens, mostly ascomycetes and imperfect fungi, including 235 holotypes and 555 isotypes and/or paratypes.

The INHS Amphibian and Reptile Collection contains approximately 40,000 catalogued specimens, representing 55 families and over 550 species.

The INHS Insect Collection, which comprises ca. 7 million prepared specimens as well as noninsect arthropods (e.g., arachnids and myriapods) and miscellaneous invertebrates (bryozoans), is one of the largest and oldest entomological collections in North America.

As of April 2024 the Mammal Collection had over 30,000 lots of specimens, from over 39,000 individuals, with over 58,000 preparations.

The Illinois Natural History Survey Mollusk Collection is global in scope with over 135 countries represented and contains over 509,000 catalogued specimens in over 95,000 lots.

Contains multimedia videos highlighting the U.S. Department of Energy's scientific research. State-of-the-art audio indexing and speech recognition technology allows the user to search for specific words and phrases spoken by the presenter in these video files. Simply enter a term and the results list will point to the precise snippets of the video where the term was spoken.

Science Photo Library (SPL) provides more than 600,000 images and 40,000 clips of images ranging in content from dentistry to climate change with hundreds of new submissions uploaded to the website each week. Images are watermarked, and users will need to pay for use.

Users can search across the research library and museum archives as well as modules from the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. Modules are developed for college and university level, and are peer-reviewed.

An archive of the magazines since 1888, including photography features.

Contains photos and videos uploaded by society members.

Over 17,000 images and almost 3,000 videos provided by the ESA.

Images and video taken by the GALEX, an orbiting space telescope observing galaxies in ultraviolet light across 10 billion years of cosmic history.

Hubble Telescope images from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Search for images by term of browse by categories including galaxies, solar system, nebulae, stars, the universe, and more.

Maps and images organized into categories such as "Apollo surface panoramas" and "Ranger photographs of the moon." Hierarchically organized and can be difficult to navigate.

The link above directs to NASA's landing page for image collections, including historical collections hosted on Flickr Commons and the "image of the day" service. Go to "galleries/videos" for more media. Below are links to other media galleries drawn from NASA images.

• More images and video can be found on the NASA page of the Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System.
• GRIN (Great Images in NASA) is a smaller, curated collection of images of "significant historical interest" that some users may find easier to search, though it was last updated in 2009.
• Kennedy Space Center also maintains a shuttle image and video archive, depicting some of the preflight, launch and landing activities. Images are searchable or organized by mission. The most current mission listed was in 2002.
• The NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA) features its own image gallery broken down into categories such as planetary and astronomical objects.
• NSSDCA lists even more NASA related image resources for further exploration, including Johnson Space Center's archive and the images from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The gallery includes pictures taken with the facilities of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and also pictures of their telescopes, instruments and history. NOAO is the national facility for ground-based optical astronomy, and does not have space-based images.

A collection of astronomical images taken with NRAO instruments, as well as photographs of NRAO telescopes and facilities. Images are organized into categories, or searchable.

Data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a project to make a map of a large part of the universe. Images are broken up into fields, spectra, and plates. This site is most helpful is users know exactly what they need.

Biology images from the University of Alberta. Users can browse by taxonomic hierarchy, concept, or by course.

Initially dedicated specifically to biology students, teachers, and teacher trainees, biodic opened to a wider public since 1999. It offers today the widest series of electron micrographs available on the web in the field of biology: over 1600 images are currently available in high resolution.

Nearly 7,000 images, video, and animation to be used for teaching biology. Mostly diagrams.

Over 100,000 images taken from literature digitized by the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

The Cell Image Library™ is a freely accessible, easy-to-search, public repository of reviewed and annotated images, videos, and animations of cells from a variety of organisms, showcasing cell architecture, intracellular functionalities, and both normal and abnormal processes. The purpose of this database is to advance research, education, and training, with the ultimate goal of improving human health.

Data and images for millions of biological specimens are available in electronic format for the research community, government agencies, students, educators, and the general public. The portal has advanced search functionality and can be filtered to records with attached media.

Images documenting a wide variety of research including: specimen-based research in comparative anatomy, morphological phylogenetics, taxonomy and related fields focused on increasing our knowledge about biodiversity. Users may search, browse, edit, and annotate.

From the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Provides visualization at the cellular and sub-cellular level to understand cell structure and function and how they are dynamically regulated.

The NDB contains information about experimentally-determined nucleic acids and complex assemblies.
Use the NDB to perform searches based on annotations relating to sequence, structure and function, and to download, analyze, and learn about nucleic acids. DNA and RNA images available.

Symbiota is software that allows researchers to digitize and catalog biological specimen data. There are currently over 20 sites from various regions in the world hosting their data through Symbiota. They are listed through this link.

The Photographic Collection is an archive of more than 500,000 still photographs, slides, glass plate slides, lantern slides, negatives, and sketches dating from the 1870s and taken by USGS scientists as part of their field studies. The images and photographers involved with this collection span a variety of styles, locations, and time periods. Subjects include earthquakes, volcanoes, geologic formations, minerals, historical mining operations, national parks, USGS portraits, and other photographs of historic and earth science events.

More than 30,000 historical digital images, photographs, slides, lithographs, engravings, drawings and other visual materials. The collection is richest in portraits and snapshots of modern American physicists, astronomers and geophysicists but includes many other scientists as well as photos and illustrations of laboratories, telescopes, accelerators and other instruments, objects and places. High quality print and digital reproductions are available for purchase while stock thumbnail images are free to download for educational, non-commercial uses.

A series of films created by Ascher Shapiro in the 1960s, used to teach fluid mechanics.

A large collection of insect images culled from a number of different institutions and organizations. A website of the Bugwood Images project.

Images of 41 different insects, from the USDA. Related collections are included in the menu on the left side of the page.

Images of ant species in Japan.

Images, videos, and drawings on Chrysidids.

A collection of user-submitted images, searchable by common or scientific name. Alternatively, users may filter by developmental stage, species, family, or view.

Numerous images of specimens and living moths. The site can be confusing to look at, but the images may be worthwhile.

Features high quality images of moths, organized by family.

Contains over 150 species of butterflies and over 600 field images. Also designed as an iOS app.

Bugwood Images is a grant-funded project that was started in 1994 by the University of Georgia’s Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health. It provides an easily accessible archive of high quality images for use in educational applications. It is made up of five major website interfaces. These are ForestryImages, IPMImages, InsectImages, WeedImages, and Invasive.org.

CalPhotos is a collection of 790,319 photos of plants, animals, fossils, people, and landscapes from around the world. It is searchable by scientific or common name, location, photographer, and other fields.

The Earth Science World Image Bank is a service provided by the American Geosciences Institute (AGI). This Image Bank is designed to provide quality geoscience images to the public, educators, and the geoscience community. Includes over 6,000 images.

The Fritz-Metcalf Photograph Collection is a group of about 9000 photographs relating primarily to forestry, conservation, and the lumber industry in California and the United States. Subjects include logging operations, logging equipment, reforestation, forest research, fire protection, lumber mills, and the activities of the University of California's School of Forestry. The photographs were taken from 1906 to 1984 by Emanuel Fritz, Woodbridge Metcalf and others.

Over 4500 images by Marli Miller, geology instructor at the University of Oregon.

Mindat is the world’s leading authority on minerals and their localities, deposits, and mines worldwide.It contains over 1 million images of minerals, rocks, and meteorites.

The NOAA collection includes thousands of weather and space images, hundreds of images of our shores and coastal seas, and thousands of marine species images ranging from the great whales to the most minute plankton.

Users may browse earthquake, tsunami, volcano, geology, and landslide images.

The Multimedia Gallery features graphics from USGCRP reports, including the Third National Climate Assessment, the Our Changing Planet annual report series, and others. Graphics in the gallery credited to USGCRP or another Federal entity are free to use with credit given to the original source. All other graphics may be copyright protected; obtain permission from the original source or contact USGCRP before using.

Photos taken by researchers studying the Antarctic. Subjects include scenery, wildlife, and scientific equipment.

Images, video, oral histories, maps, and more representing the mission of the US Fish and Wildlife service: "working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people."

Images and multimedia from the Geological Survey.