The Natural World
Our planet has been home to an astonishing array of life over its long history. This section explores the amazing natural world around us using our collection of over 20,000 specimens of animals, insects, plants, fossils, minerals, rocks and meteorites to provide a window into the natural wonders of the past and present. Discover the diversity of life on our planet from pre-history to how we know it today, and how the natural world has been vital to the development of the human race.
Our Natural World
Hull Museums own over 20,000 natural history specimens ranging from pressed plants to stuffed animals to fossilised creatures. Read on to discover what weird and wonderful objects are lurking in our natural history collections.
Woolly Mammoth - icon of the Ice Age (part 1)
The Woolly Mammoth was an icon of the last ice age. Tens of thousands of years ago they lived all over the northern sub-arctic tundra regions, including right here in the East Riding! Read about their special adaptations that enabled them to survive in the harshest climate.
Woolly Mammoth - icon of the Ice Age (part 2)
The Woolly Mammoth was an icon of the last ice age. Tens of thousands of years ago they lived all over the northern sub-arctic tundra regions, including right here in the East Riding! Read about the changes which brought about their extinction.
What is a fossil?
Fossils are the preserved remains of once living animals and plants. Hull Museums own a variety of fossils from shells to woolly mammoth bones. Read on to find out about the different types of fossils you can find and how they are formed.
Spineless Creatures (part 1)
If you go swimming in the sea today you will recognise a great variety of invertebrate marine life, from crabs and lobsters to corals and shelled-animals. They have evolved over time from animals you may not be familiar with. Read on to discover more about invertebrate marine life used to exist millions of years ago including ammonites, belemnites and bivalves.
Spineless Creatures (part 2)
If you go swimming in the sea today you will recognise a great variety of invertebrate marine life, from crabs and lobsters to corals and shelled-animals. They have evolved over time from animals you may not be familiar with. Read on to discover more about invertebrate marine life used to exist millions of years ago including brachiopods, crinoids, echinoids and trilobites.
Ichthyosaurs - 'Fish Lizards'
Once a deadly predator of the prehistoric seas, ichthyosaurs are now only found as fossils in the age-old rocks. Discover how this creature lived its life at a time when dinosaurs ruled the lands and parts of Yorkshire lay under a warm shallow sea.
Toothpaste to Toasters, Matches to Make-up (part 1)
Discover the surprising ways we use minerals in our day-to-day lives, often without realising it. From the glitter in your make-up to the whiteness of your teeth, some minerals are useful for all sorts of things. Read on to see how many times you use these minerals every day.
Toothpaste to Toasters, Matches to Make-up (part 2)
Discover the surprising ways we use minerals in our day-to-day lives, often without realising it. See how quartz keeps the time and calcite is useful for a stomach ache. Read on to see how many times you use these minerals every day.
Earth's Natural Palette (part 1)
Discover how minerals have been used to colour our world for thousands of years, how the first colours to be used were painted on the caves of our Palaeolithic ancestors, and how a deadly red became an early lipstick for the Romans.
Earth's Natural Palette (part 2)
Discover how minerals have been used to colour our world for thousands of years, why blue pigments became more expensive than the precious metal gold, how yellow was poisonous and who used green as an ancient eye shadow.
Fossil Myths and Folklore (part 1)
Today we understand that fossils are the remains of once living animals and plants. However, before the 18th Century people did not understand what they were and so regarded them in terms of superstition. Read on to find out about the myths that had developed over time about fossil origins.
Fossil Myths and Folklore (part 2)
Before the 18th Century people did not understand what fossils were and so regarded them in terms of superstition. Today we understand that fossils are the remains of once living animals and plants. Read on to find out about fossil myths that have surrounded crinoids, sharks teeth and bivalves.
Pressed Plants and Flattened Flowers
People collect many different things, and at Hull Museums we own many herbarium collections of dried plants and flowers that have been collected from individuals across East Yorkshire. Read on to find out what a herbarium is, and how plants are preserved and stored in our collections.
Nature's Medicine Cabinet
Plants, herbs and spices have been used by humans for hundreds of years as natural medicines. It is believed that these traditional medicines are still used today as a complimentary method to synthetic medicines. Read on to find out more about the use of plants today as natural medicines.
Meteorites - Hot Rocks From Space
The Earth is constantly bombarded by the debris of space, with thousands of meteorites falling every year. Discover how meteorites can give us an insight into the birth of the Solar System and the history and composition of our own planet.
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778): Classifying Nature
Carl Linnaeus has been one of the most influential scientists of all time. His life's work to develop a way to classify and name all life on Earth was so successful that scientists still use it today. Read on to explore about his life and his significant works.
