Overview
Te Papa holds New Zealand’s national reference collection of fishes: the National Fish Collection. It is the largest and most comprehensive collection in the country, and it is also the largest collection of New Zealand fishes anywhere in the world.
The collection started in 1869 and now comprises over 200,000 specimens in 47,000 registered lots. These include 175 primary and 2,500 secondary type specimens – the unique specimens on which scientific names are based.
Fish specialists on the staff of Te Papa provide information on the naming (taxonomy), biogeography, evolution, life history, and ecology of our fish and fish communities.