Animal factsheets

Discover the astonishing variety of mammals, birds, reptiles, marine life and more in the Australian Museum collections.

  • Updated
    24/05/22
Giant Golden Orb-weaving spider

Spiders

Learn more about spiders, their origins, and how they are classified. Discover factsheets from the Arachnology collection, which includes the largest collection of funnel-web spiders in Australia.

Spider diversity
Dangerous spiders
Factsheets
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Short-beaked echidna

Mammals

Discover Australia's mammals - all of which have hair or fur, produce milk and are warm-blooded.

Monotremes
Marsupials
Placentals
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Frog on a fern leave

Australia's native frogs

More than 240 species of frog have been discovered in Australia! Explore our frog factsheets about learn more about our native amphibians.

Find out more
School of reef fish

Fishes

Immerse yourself in the underwater world of fishes and discover some of Sydney Harbour's fish friends. The Australian Museum's Ichthyology collection has more than 2,500 type specimens of fishes, some of which date back to the 1800s!

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Bird pollinating

Birds

Find out more about the unique and ingenious ways Australian birds have adapted to habitats. The Australian Museum has one of the largest ornithological collections in the Southern Hemisphere, containing a wide cross-section of these feathered animals.

Ornithology
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Butterfly

Insects

Explore the fascinating world of insects from beautiful butterflies to creepy crawly cockroaches! The Australian Museum Entomology collection contains mostly Australian species, but there is a significant non-Australian representation of beetles, psocids (booklice), flies, butterflies and moths.

Entomology
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Red-bellied Black Snake Pseudechis porphyriacus

Reptiles

Discover a diverse group of animals including turtles, lizards, snakes and crocodiles, including the largest living reptile in the world: the Australian Crocodile!

Herpetology
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Beach Worm

Worms

The Australian Museum houses an important collection of earthworms, bristle worms and leeches, including an extensive bristle worm collection from Australia and Indo-Pacific. Learn about these resilient creatures that have virtually conquered every habitat on the planet!

Terrestrial Invertebrates
Polychaetes
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Anemones

Jellyfish, anemones and corals

Discover factsheets from this ancient group of animals that have lived on earth for more than 650 million years.

Cnidarians
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Pyura spinifera

Sea squirts and sea tulips

Discover sea squirts and sea tulips - with over 80 species in Sydney alone. The Australian Museum's Marine Invertebrate collection houses more than 1600 urochordates (predominantly ascidian) lots, mainly from Australia and Antarctica.

Marine life
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Close-up of a nudibranch

Molluscs

Learn more about this unique and varied animal group, molluscs are very diverse in appearance and habitat.

Malacology
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WA biodiversity

Sea stars and sea urchins

Did you know that Sydney alone has more than 120 species of echinoderms? Step into the underwater world and learn more about these spiny creatures.

Echinoderms
Marine life
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Planktonic Polychaete worm

Plankton

Learn more about the varieties of plankton - phytoplankton, zooplankton and holoplankton - and learn why the Bluewater Zone is so important to the survival of the Great Barrier Reef.

Marine life
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King crab

Crustaceans

Find out more about crustaceans - crabs, lobsters, prawns, barnacles - and what makes them such interesting creatures. The Australian Museum has a long tradition of studying crustaceans and this is reflected in the extensive Marine Invertebrates collection.

Marine Invertebrates
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Scolopendrid Centipede

Centipedes and millipedes

Step into the multi-legged world of these crawling creatures and learn how important they are to our environment.

Myriapods
More details
Sydney Cockatoo

Wildlife of Sydney

Explore the unique habitats of Sydney's wildlife and what kind of animals will you find in and around Sydney Harbour.

Habitats
Animals resources
Fishes of Sydney Harbour
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J24324 Fromia polypora

Sydney Seastars

Assists in the identification of seastars (or starfish) encountered in the Sydney region (defined as between, Gosford to the north and Bundeena to the south) in depths to 30 metres.

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Grey-headed Flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus)

Australian Bats

Most bats are nocturnal animals, meaning they search for prey at night and sleep during the day. Find out more about some of Australia’s bat species and where bats are found.

Flying mammals
Mammalogy
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Bird specimen under glass display

Australia’s extinct animals

Learning about Australia’s extinct fauna helps us to create links through time that relate the animals of the past with those of today.

Extinction theories
Fact sheets
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Death adder snake

Dangerous Australian animals

Meet some of Australia's most dangerous animals and learn about the different ways they poison and catch their prey. The Australian Museum has an extensive collection of Australia's deadliest animals to find out more about why they are so dangerous to humans.

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C&R building

Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI)

AMRI brings together scientific expertise and world-class research infrastructure to increase our knowledge of the world around us and inform environmental decision-making for a better future.

Biodiversity & geodiversity
Collections-based research
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