Other invertebrates

 

bleached coral

Bleached Coral

 

The dizzying diversity of animal life on Earth means that it can be hard to succinctly do justice to each of the animal groups represented in the Museum collections, which include but are not limited to arachnids, crustaceans, insects, molluscs and vertebrates. Extinct groups and fossil members of these groups are held in the Earth Collections. 

Many of these collections were acquired for teaching use at the University and taxonomic displays. The Museum also holds some more comprehensive research collections focused around specific taxa, which are not currently catalogued in depth. 

 
 

There are other animal groups represented by fewer than a hundred specimens each: Acanthocephala, Brachiopoda, Ctenophora, Entoprocta, Hemichordata, Onychophora, Nematoda, Nematomorpha, Nemertea, Phoronida and Priapulida. 

Microscope slide collections

There are approximately 20,000 microscope slides in the collection, including animal, plant and protist material. The collection is a mix of teaching and examination material, as well as research collections such as embryological development specimens related to J P Hill and Gavin de Beer. This collection contains a number of microscopic animal groups otherwise not represented in the collections.