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  1. Homepage
  2. Discover & Learn
  3. Animal factsheets

Animal factsheets

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

  • Updated
    31/08/20

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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
Learn more

Short-beaked echidna

Mammals

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

Monotremes
Marsupials
Placentals
Learn more

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!

Learn more

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
Find out more

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
Learn more

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
Find out more

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
Learn more

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
Learn more

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
Learn more

Close-up of a nudibranch

Molluscs

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

Malacology
Read more

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
Read more

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
Read more

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
Learn more

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
Find out more

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.

Read more

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
Learn more

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
Read More

Death adder snake

Dangerous 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.

Learn more

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
Discover more


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Palaeontology Collection Area 2018

Palaeontology

Palaeontology is the study of fossils. Fossils are the remains or traces of prehistoric living things and are preserved in substances such as sediments, coal, tar, oil, amber or volcanic ash, or frozen in ice or naturally mummified.

Fossilised specimens
Ancient remains
Learn more

Entomology Collection Area

Entomology

Entomology is the study of insects including flies, cicadas, moths, earwigs, fleas, bugs, cockroaches, bees, dragonflies, and termites.

Butterflies
Beetles
Find out more

Tyrannosaurs

Dinosaurs and their relatives

Discover the Mesozoic era of the dinosaurs! Dinosaurs are classified as a group of reptiles, although some of their features are found in mammals and birds living today.

The Mesozoic era
Dinosaur factsheets
Australian dinosaurs
Find out more

Marine Invertebrates Collection Area 2018

Marine Invertebrates

The Marine Invertebrates section is active in research on a variety of taxa, such as annelids, cnidarians and crustaceans, and holds extensive collections of most marine phyla

Crustaceans
Polychaetes
Learn more

Mineral specimen

Albert Chapman collection

The Albert Chapman mineral collection was purchased by the New South Wales Government in 1988.

820 rock and mineral specimens
Mineralogy collection
Discover more

Glass marine model

Blaschka glass models

The 19th century was a time of great scientific endeavour. In 1879 the Australian Museum actively sought to share these wonderful discoveries with the public by ordering specimens and models from Europe so that it could display all the common European vertebrates and invertebrates.

Glass models of sea anemones
Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka
Discover more

Echidna

Mammalogy

Learn about our collection and study of mammals. Mammals include placental mammals such as rodents, primates and whales; marsupials such as kangaroos and koalas; and monotremes such as the platypus and echidna.

Monotremes
Marsupials
Bats
Learn more

Lion Fish drawing

Australian Museum Magazine 1921-1961

The Australian Museum Magazine was launched in 1921 to satisfy the public's 'lively curiosity' about the natural world and cultures.

Read More

Dave Pross examines grinding grooves at Quad Pad

Australian Archaeology

The Australian Museum holds a large number of cultural material and objects obtained from archaeological sites in New South Wales, as well as items from various regions throughout Australia.

Archaeological Collection Deposition
Policy
Protocols
Read more

Ornithology Collection Area 2018

Ornithology

Ornithology is the branch of zoology devoted to studying birds. Around 10,000 species of bird inhabit the world, ranging from tiny hummingbirds up to huge ostriches. The Australian Museum's Ornithology Collection contains a wide cross-section of these fascinating animals.

Birds
Eggs
Find out more

Ichthyology Collection Area 2018

Ichthyology

Learn about our collection and research of fishes; including bony fishes and cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and rays.

Fishes
Sharks
Sting Rays
Learn more

Theban mummy coffin detail

World Cultures Collection

Explore the material culture of indigenous peoples throughout the world in the Australian Museum's World Cultures Collection.

Egyptian
Indonesian
African
American
Chinese
Find out more

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Photo of two painted shields

The Australian Museum respects and acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the First Peoples and Traditional Custodians of the land and waterways on which the Museum stands.

Image credit: gadigal yilimung (shield) made by Uncle Charles Chicka Madden