Building a Centralized Database for Kentucky Fishes: Progress and Future Applications

Kentucky has a long history of ichthyological collection and study. Voucher specimens are available for collections dating back to 1870 and are housed in various museums and research collections in the United States. In this paper we present a descriptive overview and the current status of a project aimed at building a centralized database for vouchered records of Kentucky fishes. To date, we have entered over 51,000 records into the database. Each of these entries contains at least three vital pieces of information: species identification, georeferenced locality, and time of collection. With increasing recognition of the potential value of museum-based data in biological, ecological and conservation studies such a centralized database will serve as an important scientific resource for the study of Kentucky fishes.