Departmental collections
The Museum's collections are organised into 6 departments where they are cared for by professional curators with expertise in each area.
Learn more about each of our departmental collections and the Museum treasures that are available for loan.
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Botany collections
Learn more about how curators are collating and caring for our collections from around the world.
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Entomology collections
An estimated 28 million prepared specimens, including insects and other terrestrial and freshwater arthropods, including spiders, mites and myriapods.
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Mineralogy collections
Well over a third of a million individual specimens divided into four main elements: minerals, (about 180,000), rocks, (about 120,000), meteorites (about 5,000) and ores (about 70,000).
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Zoology collections
The 29 million specimens include most of the recent animal kingdom. Find out more, including how the collections are maintained, how to access them, and what our current collecting priorities are.
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Library collections
Over 790,000 volumes, 112,000 original pieces of arwork, 20,000 photos, 12,000 current serials and geological maps.
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Palaeontology collections
Our anthropology, invertebrate, vertebrate, micropalaeontology and palaeobotany collections contain over 9 million specimens. Learn more about our world-class palaeontological collections and how to access them.