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OXFORD UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

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Friday, 6 June 2025 (19:00 - 22:00)

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Vice-Chancellor’s Awards Winners

Uncovering Oxfordshire’s ‘dinosaur highway’ was recognised at the Vice-Chancellor’s Awards on Thursday 15 May 2025. The Vice-Chancellor's Awards recognise achievements and celebrate success across the University and here at the Museum, we are delighted to announce that Uncovering Oxfordshire’s ‘dinosaur highway’ was announced as the winner in the Outstanding Contribution category. Dr Duncan Murdock and Dr Emma Nicholls who led the project are pictured above receiving the award from the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey.

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Swifts Diary 2025

Monday 19 May
The skies were quiet when I arrived at the tower this morning, it was rather cool conditions and as expected many of the birds were sitting in the nestboxes. A total of 39 boxes are now showing signs of activity. There are more than 20 eggs so if the weather stays fair it could be a good breeding year. The Internet camera is back on-line now and shows a bird which is sitting on eggs in box W04B (left hand entrance of the centre box, on the 3rd level from the bottom on the side of the tower that faces South Parks Road).

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All The Small Things

Think of the smallest insect that you’ve seen. An ant? A flea? Perhaps you’ve encountered something so minute that it was utterly unrecognisable. This is surprisingly likely, as well over 100 insect families contain species measuring less than 1 mm in length.

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Discover Mineralogy and Petrology

The mineralogy and petrology collections include over 30,000 mineral specimens of global provenance and over 100,000 petrological samples including research suites, historic collections and excellent individual examples of various rock types. The collections also encompass gemstones, meteorites and decorative stone.

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Gemstones

Delve into this colourful display in the Upper Gallery, featuring beautiful gemstones and an incredible variety of jewellery design.

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Palaeontology

Our palaeontology collections include one of the world’s most important collections of Middle Jurassic dinosaurs; exceptionally preserved specimens with intact soft tissues; and enigmatic fossils representing the earliest complex multicellular organisms. It features around 400,000 fossils, ranging from the Archean, ~2.7 billion years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene, 11,700 years ago.

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Trilobite Wall

The oceans were once filled with trilobites, ancient animals that are some of the first creatures with hard parts found in the fossil record. A giant slab of rock preserves a natural gathering of three types of trilobite, as well as many brittle stars.

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Greenland, with brown rock in background and small iceberg in the foreground.

Discover our research

Research

Oxford University Museum of Natural History has been a centre of world-leading research and scientific debate since it opened in 1860.

Henry Taunt's interior view of the museum, 1870

Find out about our history

History

The Museum building is as spectacular today as when it opened in 1860. Learn more about the world's first purpose-built natural history museum.

A display of numerous insects with labels

About our collections

Collections

The Museum has over seven million historical and modern specimens encompassing the natural world.

Learn with us

Learn

The Museum offers a range of learning experiences for different audiences through online activities, in-museum sessions, and self-guided visits.

The Oxford dinosaur that started it all

Did you know that the Museum's own Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur to be named and described?

Discover 200 years of dinosaur science, beginning in the collections at OUMNH.

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A group of musicians playing in the main court of the museum

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Set in the heart of a historic university city, Oxford University Museum of Natural History provides an inspiring backdrop for a wide range of private events. This characterful neogothic building dates back to the 1850s and is home to over seven million natural history specimens.