Natural world
Lord Derby's magnificent gift included 15,000 bird and mammal specimens and contained more than 400 type specimens. It still forms the core of the upper vertebrate collections, which are presently ranked amongst the top twenty in importance in the world. The bird collections now number about 55,000 skins and mounts. The mammals total about 2,000 skins and mounts. The vertebrate osteology collection numbers 1,060 specimens and includes material from many extinct species such as the Dodo, Great Auk, Falkland Islands Warrah (Wolf) and the Australian Thylacine.
Mounted specimen
The bird and mammal cabinet skins include a high proportion of type and figured material and also involve many species that are now either extinct or critically endangered. These include the Lord Howe Island Gallinule Porphyrio stanleyi, named after Lord Stanley, of which we have one of the only two known. The Australian material is amongst the most important world-wide; along with much early Victorian material we hold the only Paradise Parrot Psephotus pulcherrimus from Gould's original type series with original field labels written by John Gilbert, Gould's collector.
The mammal collection, though much smaller, includes important material such as the type of Lord Derby Opossum Caluromys derbianus and two syntypes of the now-extinct Long-tailed Hopping Mouse Notomys longicaudata of Western Australia.
We also have material collected by Captain James Cook, Charles Darwin, John James Audubon and many other distinguished collectors. Some of the birds and mammals now in our collection were once living in the Aviary and Menagerie at Knowsley Hall and were painted by Edward Lear and other notable artists such as Joseph Wolf.
Bird eggs
The bird egg collection numbers around 30,000 clutches. Of spirit material, only the mammal collection is significant. The number of bats has increased from two specimens in 1975 to over 2,000 in 1999; this is mainly due to donations from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of moribund British species tested for rabies.
The small fish collection is worldwide in scope but has poor taxonomic coverage for any geographical area. There are a few types from the Challenger expedition and some recent Catfish types from South America. Another notable collection is the set of tumerous fish assembled by James Johnstone at the University of Liverpool in the 1920s. Early collections of this type from the Irish Sea are rare.
Preserved fish specimen