2.5 billion years of the history of life in the collections
The Department of Palaeobiology houses nearly 2 million fossil animals and plants. The collections are used for research at the department, but also by visiting researchers from around the world.
Here you can find everything from fossil plants, invertebrates, to large mammals and reptiles. Here you can find, among other things, the world's largest collection of Silurian fossils from Gotland and one of the world's largest collections of fossil plants. The collections contain many unique and important items. Approximately 500,000 are currently registered in the database and new collections are added and registered continuously.
Even microscopic fossils are preserved in thousands of preparations. The collections represent the entire geological time scale, from pre-Cambrian to Quaternary material. The largest collections come from the Nordic countries, but fossils from almost all corners of the world are represented.
Some of the items in the collections were collected as early as the 18th century and the collections continue to grow through research expeditions and donations.
