Natural history collections

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery cares for over 150,000 natural history specimens. These include an estimated 90,000 insects, 10,000 minerals, 10,000 plants, 3,000 jars of wet-preserved specimens, plus hundreds of birds, mammals, eggs, shell, corals, skeletons, fossils and rocks. Many of these collections are important due to their age, associated information and the personal histories of the collectors. The Museum also has a historic natural history library and archive.

Plymouth Marine Fauna Spirit collection

This contains over 3000 marine animals from Plymouth Sound - the oldest, continually studied stretch of water in the world. The collection has been amassed over the past 150 years by the Marine Biological Association of Great Britain.

Bird collection

The bird collection contains some 800 specimens, mainly local 19th century specimens, representing more than 220 British species.

Insect collection

The museum holds over 90,000 insect specimens, most of which have been collected in and around Plymouth and the counties of Devon and Cornwall. This includes an important Coleoptera (beetle) collection, donated by James Higman Keys.

Herbaria

Herbaria or pressed plant collections have historically been the only accurate way to study botany. The Herbaria collection contains material collected by Thomas Bruges Flower (1817 to 1899), Sir John St Aubyn (1758 to 1839), I.N.W. Keys (donated 1909) and G.C. Bignell (1826 to 1910). Specimens have been collected over a long time period, from the mid-1700s to the present day in Devon and the surrounding area.

Minerals

The Museum holds some 10,000 minerals. The bulk of the collection was assembled by a few avid collectors, all closely linked with Plymouth and the South West. These include Sir John St Aubyn (1758 to 1839), Sir William Serjeant (1857 to 1930), René Gallant (1906 to 1985) and The Richard Barstow (1947 to 1982) Collection.

Exhibitions and events

Our natural history collections are highlighted in our permanent natural history gallery, Explore Nature.

Wild about natural history?

If you're interested in natural history why not join our Wild About Plymouth group at one or more of their events, which run at various locations throughout the city and beyond?

Further reading

Our natural history staff are a busy lot and have had articles published in a number of places. If you’re interested in a bit of further reading, why not see if you can find these articles?

• Ayre, C., Bishop, H., Fothergill, F., and Freedman, J. 2008. Collecting Life: Field Collecting Littoral Marine Animals for Museum Collections. NatSCA News. Issue 14. pp.33-40.
• Fothergill, F. 2005. The State and Status of Geological Collections in the United Kingdom. The Geological Curator. Vol. 8. No. 3. pp. 53-136.
• Freedman, J. 2007. Monsters of Natural History. GEM News. No. 105. p.5.
• Freedman, J., and King, I. 2007. Making Tracks at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. Teaching Earth Science. Vol. 32. No. 3. pp. 12-14.
• Freedman, J. Forgotten Heroes? The relationship between curators and education staff reassessed. The Geological Curator. Vol. 8. No. 7. pp. 335-340.
• Freedman, J. 2008. GCG workshop. Identification, care and conservation of sub-fossil bones. Coprolite. No. 55. pp.8-11.
• Freedman, J., and Clamp, J. 2008. Natural History Displays at Ridgeway Secondary School. Teaching Earth Sciences. Vol. 33. No. 2. pp. 15-18.
• Freedman, J., and Lawrence, S. 2008. GCG Microclimates Workshop. Coprolite. No. 57. pp. 4-6.
• Freedman, J., Booth, J., Luu, D., and Doyle. 2009. Museum Displays in Secondary Schools. GEM Case Studies. Vol. 2. pp.14-15.
• Freedman, J. 2009. The Quaternary Vertebrate Research Group Conference. Coprolite. No. 59. pp.6-9.
• Freedman, J. 2009. Darwin’s Voyage of Discovery. MBA News. No. 42. pp. 16-17.
• Shepherd, J. 2009. Bringing an herbarium to life at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. NatSCA News. Issue 17. pp. 43-51.
• Shepherd, J. The Collector. Geoscientist. Vol. 19. No. 12. pp. 6-9.
• Shepherd, J. 2009. The St. Aubyn mineral collection (c.1794-2010) at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. The Geological Curator. Vol. 9. No. 2. pp. 45-56.

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