Our collections

The collection of bones at the museum has more than 18,000 skeletons and skeletal parts. The collection includes all vertebrate groups from all around the world, and the unique "bone reference collection" provides a useful tool for researchers from several disciplines.

The insect collection at the Gothenburg Museum of Natural History contains several million examples of insects from many parts of the world. The collection makes up a unique knowledge bank from which we can see how insect fauna has changed since the early 1800's.

Invertebrates include all animal groups that do not belong to the vertebrates, i.e. they have no backbone. There are almost 10 million specimens of invertebrates from different groups in the museum's collections. They are mostly kept in liquid preservatives, but there are also large collections of dried specimens, mainly insects.

The museum’s geology collection consists of around 18,000 items. As early as 1778 is was documented in the minutes that the museum had collected ores and petrified materials. The geology collection is divided into minerals, rock types and fossils, as well as material from mines and expeditions.

The collection of vertebrates includes fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. There are over 100,000 vertebrates in the museum’s collections.

The museum’s egg collection contains at least 30,000 eggs. The collection of cuckoos’ eggs is among Northern Europe's largest and has been widely used by researchers as a basis for studies on cuckoo brood parasitism.

The type collection at Gothenburg Museum of Natural History is truly unique. A type is reference material used in scientific research around the world. There are around 2,000 types in the museum’s collections.