Entomology
The insect collection is the largest, with about 18 million individual specimens. The beetle and Asian butterflies collections are among the largest of their kind in the world, as are the collections with dragonflies and braconidae wasps.
Orthopteroidea
Vertebrates
"Vertebrates" are animald with bones. The vertebrate collection of Naturalis has many rare and extinct species. Former zoo animals, but also historical collections that were assembled in the 19th century during expeditions to Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Reptiles and Amphibians
Invertebrates
The invertebrate collection holds about 5.800.000 objects. The highlights of this collection include the crustaceans of Southeast Asia, the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The Utrecht parasite collection is housed in Naturalis since 2006. For some groups of corals, Naturals Biodiversity Center has the largest collection in the world.
Geology
The geological collection consists of roughly 3.200.000 fossils and 800.000 minerals and stones. The collection has samples from all over the world, but the majority is from Europe and Indonesia.
Maintenanceand management
Making sure that all those 43 million stones, plants, jars and stuffed animals are kept intact and available for scientific research is no small task. It is performed by our collection managers and preparators, assisted by a number of volunteers.