A fish collection of about 5,000 lots has been housed at the Museum since the 1970s. James Morrow, Ron Smith, and several other University of Alaska researchers established and built the nucleus of the collection. Amphibians and reptiles (Herpetology) are in a separate catalog of about 300 lots. Data for both collections are in the Arctos database. Geographic coordinate data will be added for these records beginning in November 2008.

The collection was under the care of Nora Foster until 1998 and of Dr. Gordon Haas until 2006. Andrés López joined the Museum of the North as curator of fishes in the Fall of 2008.