This three-day international meeting, held in SHNH’s 90th year, will mark the bicentenary of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and delve into its history and impact on our knowledge of the natura...

Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel shows us natural history museum buildings which make deep time visible in stone and space.

This three-day international meeting, held in SHNH’s 90th year, will mark the bicentenary of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and delve into its history and impact on our knowledge of the natura...

What role do Biological Collections and information systems and databases play in reconnecting Māori with taonga species, whakapapa and mātauranga Māori? Ta...

This three-day international meeting, held in SHNH’s 90th year, will mark the bicentenary of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and delve into its history and impact on our knowledge of the natura...

Scientific dating proves streaks on walls of Bacon Hole, near the Mumbles in south Wales, is Palaeolithic rock art

Archives of Natural History is the journal of the Society for the History of Natural History, providing an avenue for the publication of research on the history and bibliography of natural history in its broadest sense. Published since 1943, articles cover topics such as botany, general biology, geo...

Join us for the Royal Society Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal and Lecture delivered by 2025 winner Professor Sadiah Qureshi.

ALT: Man Loves a Good Leaf

Call for papers This three-day international meeting, held in SHNH’s 90th year, will mark the bicentenary of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and delve into its history and impact on our knowled...

Call for papers This three-day international meeting, held in SHNH’s 90th year, will mark the bicentenary of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and delve into its history and impact on our knowled...

Call for Abstracts and Earlybird Registration Now Open

How museums display extinct species—and what these exhibits say about us.   While it’s no longer possible to encounter a dodo in the wild, we can still come face-to-face with them in museums. The rema...

YouTube video by Society for the History of Natural History

The Redouté brothers: Masters of scientific illustration in Paris Hans Walter Lack, James A. Compton & Martin W. Callmander. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. 2024. 822pp. ISBN 978-2-38327-020-1. ...

SHNH Summer Meeting by Josephine Koopman, Researcher (Department of History, European University Institute) “The senses,” Michel de Montaigne wrote in 1588, “are the beginning and the end of human kno...

SHNH Summer Meeting by Josephine Koopman, Researcher (Department of History, European University Institute) “The senses,” Michel de Montaigne wrote in 1588, “are the beginning and the end of human kno...

On 24th August 1831, Charles Darwin’s great friend and mentor John Stevens Henslow sat down at his desk, took up his pen, and wrote what turned out to be one of the most important letters in the histo...

In 1943, Australia tried to send a live platypus across U-boat-infested waters to Britain as a diplomatic gift. The mission, part zoological experiment, part geopolitical theatre, ended in disaster

Two specimens at a museum in Cambridge are the only physical evidence this bird ever existed.