The Natural History Collection, established at the museum's foundation in 1895, comprises some 500,000 objects, including photographs, slides, maps, glass plates and films. It represents a comprehensive archive of life and knowledge from over four billion years of Earth and life history, preserved, expanded and shared across generations. The objects illustrate developments over long periods of time and allow comparisons and predictions to be made. The digitisation of these objects is enabling a strong network of researchers and creating opportunities to address new questions.
The collection has a regional and international character due to the research trips made by the museum's founders, Dr Adolf Fritze and Dr Hugo Ficke, and the numerous active appeals to the public for donations and targeted acquisitions. All areas of natural history, such as geology/mineralogy, palaeontology, zoology, botany and mycology, are represented to varying degrees in various sub-collections.
The zoological collections are of particular importance due to their regional focus. The biodiversity of southwest Germany has been documented for over a century in some cases, clearly showing the gradual change or even disappearance of habitats.
The processing, visualisation and digitisation of the collections is a time-consuming, ongoing and crucial process. It forms the basis for working with the objects and communicating them through exhibitions.
Alpine ibex (Capra ibex). Foto: Axel Killian.
Collections
Collections
Geology/Mineralogy
The collection, which consists mainly of historic rocks, originates from various European sources. These include typical igneous and metamorphic rocks from the Black Forest, rare volcanites from the Kaiserstuhl region and a wide range of sedimentary rocks from southwest Germany.
The historic mining districts of the southern Black Forest provided the impetus for the establishment of a regional mineral collection. Familiar localities such as Schauinsland mine and the Kaiserstuhl quarries, for example, provided crystal specimens.
After 1950, the museum underwent a period of significant expansion, including the addition of extensive mineralogical collections from the Black Forest region. Of particular note is the fact that the museum building was constructed directly above the industrial canal where gemstones and jewellery were ground in mills until the 19th century.
Palaeontology
The Palaeontological Collection has been built up gradually since the museum's foundation, and its expansion has been facilitated by the museum's own excavations. The main sources of fossils are the sedimentary rocks in the immediate vicinity of Freiburg, as well as those at Solnhofen and Eichstätt in Bavaria, and quarries such as the Messel quarry near Darmstadt.
The collection also includes Permian/Carboniferous plant fossils, Tertiary fossil leaves and above all Jurassic ammonites. The specimens presented illustrate the significant climatic changes that have occurred in the region over the past millions of years, resulting in changes in habitat. They provide a compelling illustration of the evolutionary, adaptive, developmental and diverse processes that have shaped life on Earth.
A notable example of regional fossil discoveries is a fossil fish lizard from the famous Holzmaden site near Stuttgart. This specimen has been part of the museum's collection since 1902 and is currently on display to visitors in the foyer.
Zoological Collection
The zoological collection, which comprises over 200,000 objects, is based in part on appeals for donations made by the museum's first director, Adolf Fritze. The collection has managed to grow steadily through a combination of research trips, gifts, purchases and the museum's own acquisitions.
The main areas of the collection are entomology (the study of insects), ornithology (the study of birds) and malacology (the study of molluscs). Insects are undoubtedly the most species-rich class in the animal kingdom. The systematic determination of these specimens is challenging and their continued care is essential to meet the new demands of science and society. The museum's regional and international insect collection comprises some 1,700 insect boxes, many of which are over 100 years old. At the same time, the collection has been continuously and diversely added to, and this biodiversity still serves as a reference for current inventories, biotope mapping and comparative research projects.
Beekeeping
The museum's collection includes a wide range of beekeeping artefacts, both historic and contemporary. These include traditional log hives, woven straw baskets and more contemporary magazine hives. The museum also has honey presses and extractors for processing, queen breeding boxes and an assortment of beekeeping tools.
Botany
In addition to the established herbaria, the botanical collection includes a wide range of tree, shrub and fungal species.
Of particular note is the well-documented moss herbarium of Dr J. Winter. It is one of the few remaining historic herbaria from southwest Germany to have survived both World Wars almost intact. It has been housed in the museum since the early 1960s, on permanent loan from the Badischer Landesverein für Naturkunde und Naturschutz e. V. With over 2,000 regional specimens and more than 400 species of moss, this collection is particularly valuable.
