Fish collections

The large collection of fishes that we house is one of the most historically important collections in the world and dates back to the late eighteenth century.

The collection is particularly notable for its thousands of type specimens and its global scope.

Specimen numbers

About the Collection

Historically, fish specimens were prepared dried as half-skins or stuffed and mounted skins until the middle of the 18th century.

Thereafter, fishes began to be preserved whole in alcohol and this eventually became the prime method of preserving animals of this group, particularly after its advocacy by Albert Gunther in his 1880 Introduction to the Study of Fishes.

From 1900 onwards the use of formaldehyde as a fixative also became standard practice for fishes. Routine tissue sampling prior to fixation did not become established until 2010.

There is a total of 1.3m specimens in various categories in the Museum fish collection including:

• 145,648 (ca. 0.5m total specimens) databased fluid-preserved lots
• 1,156 databased skeletons
• 411 databased cleared and stained
• 6,206 databased stuffed/skins
• 11,865 databased type lots

Collection Strengths

The taxonomic and geographical strengths of our fish collection reflect the activities of prominent ichthyologists who have worked here.

[Dates in brackets are biographical, those in square brackets are periods in office.]

• Albert C. L. G. Gunther (1830-1914) [1857-1895]. Global Ichthyology. His Catalogue of Fishes (1859-1870) was hugely influential and stimulated a doubling in size of the fish collection.
• George A. Boulenger(1858-1937) [1883-1920]. African freshwater fishes.
• Charles Tate Regan (1878-1943) [1901-1938] Global Ichthyology, esp. Family Cichlidae, Suborder Gadoidei (cods and relatives) and deep sea fishes. He set the principle agenda for the Natural History Museum ichthyology for the whole of the nineteenth century.
• John R. Norman (1898-1944) [1921-1943]. Global Ichthyology, esp. Pleuronectiformes.
• Ethelwynn Trewavas (1900-1993) [1928-1961]. Deep-Sea fishes, African cichlids (esp. Tilapiines), Family Sciaenidae (Drums or croakers), and Family Mugilidae (grey mullets).
• Geoffrey Palmer (b.1912) [-1975]. Family Trachipteridae (ribbon fishes) and Indo-Pacific marine fishes.
• Norman B. Marshall (1915-1996) [1947-1972]. Deep-Sea fishes.
• Denys W. Tucker(1921-2009)[1949-1960]. Atlantic fishes.
• Alwyne C. Wheeler (1929-2005) [1950-1989]. British fishes.
• Peter ‘Humphry’ Greenwood (1927-1995) [1958-1989]. Global Ichthyology, esp. Family Cichlidae.
• Peter J. P. Whitehead (1930-1992) [1960-1989]. Order Clupeiformes and Indo Pacific marine Fishes.
• Gordon J. Howes (1930-2013) [1968-1993]. Order Gadiformes.
• Nigel B. Merrett (b. 1940) [1989-1999]. North Atlantic Marine fishes.
• Darrell Siebert (b. 1955) [1987-2017]. S.E. Asian Freshwater fishes.
• Anthony C. Gill (b.1962) [1994-2003] Indo-Pacific Marine fishes
• Ralf Britz (b. 1964) [2004-2019] Asian Freshwater fishes esp. Myanmar

Key collections

• Mary Kingsley
• Pieter Bleeker
• James Cook
• Mungo Park
• Francis Day
• Charles Darwin
• Challenger
• Antarctic expeditions – James Clark Ross (‘Erebus and Terror’), Robert Scott (‘Discovery’ and ‘Terra Nova’), Ernest Shackleton (‘Quest’)
• Institute of Oceanographic Sciences
• Ralf Britz Myanmar Collection

Geographical strengths

• African freshwater fishes
• Asian freshwater fishes
• Atlantic midwater fishes

Learn more about the collections