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Life Sciences
Botany: 6 million specimens of bryophytes, ferns, seed plants and slime moulds. 117,250 primary types. Systematics of all cryptogamic plant groups except non-lichenised fungi. Comprehensive, type-rich collections of lichens, bryophytes and algae, strong in Old World pteridophytes European, Macaronesian, North African, Himalayan and Central American vascular plants. Microbial collections: The Museum’s collection of algae is one of the largest in the world, with more than a quarter of a million specimens from around the globe. The lichen collection consists of about 400,000 specimens and at least 10,000 type specimens. The Diatom collections include freshwater, brackish and marine representatives and are extremely geographically and taxonomically diverse, with all major diatom groups – both fossil and recent – represented by over 300,000 specimens.
Vertebrate collections: The Avian anatomical collections include skeleton and spirit collections, together totalling around 33,600 specimens. The world-renowned avian skin collection at the Museum hosts almost 750,000 specimens representing about 95% of the world’s extant bird species. The zoological collections are rich in voucher, type and historical specimens as well as extinct and endangered species.
Invertebrate collections: Exceptionally strong arachnid and hymenoptera specimens, especially for the British Isles, Europe, Commonwealth countries and the former British Empire. Named insect specimens of two-thirds of valid insect genera, and over half the valid described species in the world are represented. 500,000 lots of byrozoa.
Earth Sciences
Ocean deposits: The most comprehensive British collection of seabed samples and cores (40,000 worldwide localities). All oceans represented. The Sir John Murray Collection including the NHMS challenger 1872-76 seabed samples.
Meteorites: World-class meteorite collection strong in Chrondites and non-Antarctic Martian meteorites (around 2,000 individual meteorites in about 5,000 registered pieces).
Ores: >15,000 ore specimens.
Rocks: Around 123,000 sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks. Unique collection of a wide variety of 16,0000 British and European building and decorative stones.
Minerals: World-class mineral collection containing half the mineral species known in the world (10% primary types).
Micropalaeontology: Typed/figured material from >2,000 scientific publications with around 650,000 slides, residue bottles and samples. Millions of individual specimens. Over 106,600 type and figured specimens, with an estimated 51,500 being primary types.
Palaeobotany: Abundance of fossils from British Carboniferous coal measures, the Yorkshire Jurassic, and Eocene London Clay.
Fossil invertebrates: 14,000 specimens in the fossil annelid collections, all 6 classes of annelids represented across the entire geographical range. Best collection of fossil Byrozoans in the world (over 750,000 specimens). Wide representation of all classes of echinoderm and world-class carpoid collection. Over 5 million specimens in the fossil mollusc collectino including specimens collected by Charles Darwin during the HMS Beagle voyage. Estimated 71,000 fossil sponges.
Fossil vertebrates: Global fossil mammal materials with a diverse collection of Mesozoic mammals and an abundance of type/figuerd materia. Major reptile clades all represented with one of the world’s most important dinosaur collections (inc. World’s most complete Stegosaurus on display in the earth galleries). Collections representing the full stratigraphic range from Pre-Cambrian to recent. Strong holdings of historical and monograph material.
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