A distinguished scientist and doctor, Carl Linnaeus developed the binomial naming system of plants and animals that we are all familiar with today and which provides the fundamental framework for knowledge of the biota of the Earth, supporting effective conservation measures and the sustainable use of biodiversity.

This digital archive of unique material relating to the society's priceless collections of specimens, manuscripts and letters will enable full global access for investigation allowing researchers to rapidly check details of the specimens on-line, including morphological details and written data. Please note, the specimen names reflect the historical 'filed as' names that were attached to the specimens when they arrived at the Linnean Society, and do not necessarily correspond with the current/accepted names. If you are unable to locate a specimen, please contact curators@linnean.org for assistance.

The information is of critical importance to correct naming and identification of specimens. The type specimens represent the original concept of new species, exemplified by the specimens and illustrations used when assigning binomial scientific names, the foundation stones of taxonomy.

The collections are constantly referred to by researchers throughout the world and many specimens have been cited and/or illustrated in taxonomic papers.

The Linnean Collections web repository was set up as part of the Linnaean Tercentenary celebrations.

This repository was set up and is managed and maintained by the Research Technologies group of the University of London Computer Centre (ULCC) and is based on EPrints open source repository software developed at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton.

This repository comprises the following collections of images:

• Linnaean Herbarium
• Smithian Herbarium
• Linnaean Insects
• Linnaean Fish
• Linnaean Shells
• Linnaean Correspondence
• Buchanan-Hamilton's Watercolour Drawings
• Alfred Russel Wallace's Notebooks
• Linnaeus' Manuscripts

Contact Information

Any correspondence concerning this specific repository should be sent to curators@linnean.org.

Any requests for permission to use images from this repository should be sent to images@linnean.org.

For more information on requesting images and image use, go to Reprographics and Image Use.