A hydrozoan specimen © The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
The cnidaria collections include corals, jellyfish, sea anemones, octocorals and hydroids, with approximately 20% of the specimens known to be types.
The geographical strength of the collection is our Indo-Pacific holdings, particularly material from the Red Sea, Arabian Gulf, Chagos Archipelago, Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.
Other geographic highlights include Atlantic and Antarctic material. A largely historic collection, the non-reef corals are from important deep-sea expeditions such as the Challenger Expedition, the Discovery Expeditions and the John Murray Expedition.
We also care for the types and other specimens figured in the seven volumes of the Catalogue of Madreporaria (1893-1928) compiled by George Matthai, Cyril Crossland, J. Stanley Gardiner and J.J. Lister.
The Natural History Museum cnidaria collection is used for taxonomic research, studies of coral richness (species, generic, morphological, genetic), as well as for understanding time series trends in ocean acidification and for climate change research.
Slide collection
33,500
Wet collection
43,615
Dry collection
1,420
Hydroid herbarium
1,500
Significant collecting expeditions
- Challenger Expedition (HMS Challenger), 1872-1876, the first global oceanographic voyage
- Discovery Expedition (RRS Discovery), 1901-1904, Antarctica
- Discovery Investigations, 1923-1951 [RRS Discovery (1923-1931), RRS William Scoresby (1927-1945), RRS Discovery II (1929-1951), Southern Ocean
- John Murray Expedition (Mabahiss), 1933-1934, Indian Ocean
- Low Isles/Yonge Expedition, 1928-1929, Great Barrier Reef
- Royal Society Expedition to Aldabra, 1967-1968
- Percy Sladen Trust Expedition (HMS Sealark), 1905, Indian Ocean
- British Antarctic Expedition (Terra Nova), 1910-1913
- Joint Services Expedition to Egmont Island (JSEI), 1972-1973, Chagos Archipelago
- Joint Services Expedition to Danger Island (JSDI), 1975-1976, Chagos Archipelago
Notable collectors and collections
- Charles Darwin: 1835 coral collection from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (HMS Beagle)
- Ken W. England: sea anemone collections
- Matthai-Gardiner-Crossland-Lister Collection (1893-1928): Indo-Pacific madreporarian corals
- Singapore Fisheries collection
- Charles & Anne Sheppard: corals, Chagos Archipelago
- Sydney John Hickson Collection (1885-1886): corals, Malay Archipelago
- William Saville-Kent: corals, Great Barrier Reef and Western Australia
- Brian Roy Rosen: Seychelles, doctoral thesis collection with ecological index
- George Busk: historic collection of fluid-filled sea view slides
Looking for a specimen?
This collection is being digitised
Principal Curator, Crustacea
If you would like to use any specimens for research, please get in touch
Principal Curator in Charge, Invertebrates (non-insects)
If you would like to use any specimens for research, please get in touch
Collections on the move
Access to some collections will be affected as we prepare for the move to our new collections, science and digitisation centre.
Accessing the collections
Scientists and collections management specialists can visit the collections and borrow specimens for research.
Collections management
Our duty is to provide a safe and secure environment for all of our collections.