The Collection of Vertebrate Palaeontology

The collection consists of approximately 25,000 specimens, which represent fossils of all groups of vertebrates spanning from the Ordovician to the Pleistocene. In addition, several thousands of vertebrate microfossils are contained within the collection.

The core of the collection is fish from the Middle and Late Devonian, Late Permian and Early Triassic. This includes placoderms, acanthodes, elasmobranchs, actinopterygians, dipnoans, porolepiforms, osteolepiforms and coelacanths. The fossil remains of these groups mostly derive from deposits in East Greenland and Europe, while the agnathan material comes from Silurian deposits in North Greenland.

The collection is especially renowned for the earliest known fossil tetrapods; the famous ichthyostegids and acanthostegids from the late Devonian of east Greenland.

Furthermore the collections include many fossil vertebrates from the early part of the Tertiary (Upper Paleocene to Lower Eocene); mostly actinopterygians, but also bird remains from the Fur Formation of Northwest Denmark. Finally, a considerable amount of well preserved fossil whale material from the Oligocene and Miocene of western Denmark is present.

The scientifically most important part of the collections are the many type and figured specimens from over a century's worth of scientific publications - especially from Greenland. The collection has a certain international status amongst palaeontologists and is often visited by researchers from all over the world. They come to compare their fossil material with that of the museum, and conduct further studies on existing material in the collections.

The historically oldest specimens in the collection are fish fossils from Europe and Greenland, which can be traced back to the eighteenth century. Specifically a number of specimens derive from the collections of the Dutchman Albertus Seba between 1717 and 1735. These specimens were bought by the Danish count A.G. Moltke in 1762 og brought to Denmark. Here they became part of the geologic collections of the Charlottenborg Institute. This was the first institution in Denmark, where students were educated within subjects relevant to nature and science.

Another important part of the collection material is made up of the many fossils, which numerous expeditions have brought back from Greenland since the 1930'es.

Finally the collection has a large amount of casts, which are used for teaching purposes and in various exhibitions, such as 'Prehistoric reptiles' and the 'Origin of Man' in the Geological Museum.

Curator:

Gilles Cuny