The Museum's 80 million objects form the world’s most important natural history collection.
The scientific community is using the collection to answer key questions about the past, present and future of the solar system, the geology of our planet and life on Earth.
Browse the oldest and most important entomology collection in the world of over 34 million insects and arachnids. Gathered over 300 years, these specimens are key to telling the history of collecting, the science of taxonomy and the human desire to understand the natural world.
Explore our botanical collection of an estimated six million specimens of bryophytes, ferns, seed plants and slime moulds from around the world, along with large collections of algae, lichens and diatoms.
Search the 29 million animal specimens in the zoology collection that have been gathered for over 250 years from around the world. The collection is rich in voucher, type and historical specimens as well as extinct and endangered species.
Discover the geographic, stratigraphic and historical coverage of the seven million vertebrate, invertebrate and plant fossils in our palaeontology collection.
Explore one of the world's finest collections of 500,000 rocks, gems and minerals, including 5,000 meteorites. Find out how you can use it as a resource for economic geology and scientific research.
Delve into our molecular collections, a unique and valuable resource with the capacity to store genetic material for generations to come.
Discover hidden treasures from the Library and Archives, from artworks and acquisitions to historical highlights. The collection contains more than 1.5 million books, manuscripts and artworks used for scientific, historical and humanities research.
We are digitising 80 million specimens from one of the world’s most important natural history collections and giving online access to the data through our Data Portal.
Our collections contain up to half a million artworks, including extensive collections from eighteenth and nineteenth artists and illustrators.
Access to some collections will be affected as we prepare for the move to our new collections, science and digitisation centre.
Scientists and collections management specialists can visit the collections and borrow specimens for research.
Our duty is to provide a safe and secure environment for all of our collections.