Natural History Collections

The Herbarium is internationally important and worldwide in scope. It has approximately 120,000 herbarium specimens, with a special emphasis on South-East Asia, notably Thailand numbering approximately 22,000 sheets, including over 400 type specimens. It is regarded as the second most important collection of such material in the world.

The British collection numbers 55,000 specimens and is particularly representative of Scottish material. Specimen information is good relating to identification of species, collector, collection dates and location while many of the specimens have additional data stored with them, including notes made by researchers relating to individual specimens.

The University has the only large, international collection of zoological specimens in the north of Scotland. The Zoology collection includes a wide range of material that is worldwide in scope and which covers the whole of the Animal Kingdom, from protozoa to the great whales. The collection contains around 75,000 specimens, including mammal and bird mounted taxidermy, study skins, fluid-preserved collections, insect collections and collections of slides.

Alongside the main collection of zoological specimens is a collection of skeletal material and a set of comparative anatomical models, including examples from the major 19^th century model makers.

The geological collections contain worldwide research material of palaeontological, mineralogical and lithological nature that is the third largest geology collection in Scotland. The palaeontology collection contains around 12,000 specimens, including a strength in corals and bryozoa and material from the internationally-renowned Early Devonian Rhynie chert.

The mineral collection contains over 12,000 specimens from many Scottish and British localities as well as from around the world, inlcuding many specimens from localities which no longer exist. The rock collection contains almost 9,000 specimens of worldwide origin, but with a particular strength lies in its specimens from northern Scotland.