Collections Museum
Due to the planned move, the collections are not currently accessible.
About the collections
JURASSICA has an extensive natural sciences collection estimated to total some 200,000 items. The collection includes, for example, geological, palaeontological and mineralogical samples, along with biological objects, including an osteological collection, taxidermy specimens, dried mushrooms, seashells and insects. The Museum also has a scientific library containing nearly 11,000 reference works.
The palaeontological collection accounts for the bulk of the archives and includes items such as historical Jurassic invertebrate specimens from the collections of Jules Thurmann and Frédéric-Louis Koby, and Quaternary specimens from Frédéric-Louis Koby’s collection. Recently, the collection was supplemented by nearly 45,000 specimens gathered during the dig carried out by the A16 Palaeontology Team on the construction site of the Transjurane motorway. This new collection features fossils dating from the Jurassic to the Quaternary and includes not only a collection of 13,500 dinosaur footprints unrivalled anywhere in Europe but also 90 tortoise shells, three Jurassic crocodile skeletons and more than 2,500 Cenozoic mammal specimens.
The collections in figures
| Library
|
11’000 | Invertebrates currently
|
2’200 |
| Dried mushrooms
|
2’400 | Mineralogy
|
5’600 |
| Entomology
|
48’000 | Osteology
|
1’000 |
| Geology
|
6’200 | Palaeontology
|
55’000 |
| Herbaria*
|
35'000 | Taxidermy
|
1’300 |
| Others and non-inventoried items
|
50'300 |
* The herbaria collection is managed my JURASSICA Botanical garden, to which relevant enquires should be addressed.
Inventory of the collections
The inventories of the Museum’s collections are currently being prepared for online publication and will soon be accessible from this page.
In the meantime, for enquiries about the collections, please use the form below.
Services
JURASSICA is able to loan specimens for educational (exhibitions, lessons, training, schools) and scientific purposes (observational and academic work, analyses). Requests to create illustrations of specimens (photographs, videos, 3D scans, drawings, etc.) intended for publication must be submitted in advance to the conservator. The loan of specimens may be subject to conservation conditions to ensure the safety of the specimens for the duration of the loan.
Each loan request will be considered on an individual basis and the conservator reserves the right to decline a request if they consider the purpose to be inappropriate or believe that the safety of the specimens cannot be guaranteed. If the loan request is accepted, it will be formalised by a loan contract for a given period under the terms of which the borrower is legally bound to return the specimens in the same condition in which they were received (see general terms and conditions of loans). In the case of specimens that are particularly rare or valuable, the borrower may be required to take out an appropriate insurance policy.
For more information about loans, please contact us using the form below.
Loan requests must be made using the form below no later than two weeks before the required date of receipt of the specimens. Specific enquiries about the collections can also be made using this form.