The National Museum of Natural History, housed in an 18th-century palace in the heart of the walled city of Mdina, holds almost a million specimens in its collections. Among its treasures are a flying squid beached in the 1980s, a 4000-year-old mummified Nile crocodile, the skull of a false killer whale Pseudorca crassidens, the fossilized head of a crocodilian Tomistoma gaudense found in the rocks of Gozo, and the tooth of the giant white shark Charcarocles megalodon. The museum also features a room devoted to birds, illustrating the region’s biodiversity.
The palace was built in the Parisian Baroque style by Grand Master Antonio Manoel de Vilhena in 1724, and has played various roles throughout its history, notably as a temporary hospital during the cholera epidemic of 1837, a sanatorium for British troops in 1860, and a hospital for tuberculosis patients until January 1956. On June 22, 1973, the museum was officially inaugurated and opened to the public, with the mission of acquiring, collecting, exhibiting and conserving natural history specimens, with particular emphasis on local flora and fauna.
Exhibits cover such diverse themes as local biodiversity and ecology, geology and paleontology, mineralogy, human evolution, marine fauna, skeletal structures, insects, shells and birds. Rooms are dedicated to local natural historians who have contributed to the development of knowledge about the region’s flora and fauna. A room honoring Joe Sultana focuses on the ecological importance of the islands of Filfla, Fungus Rock, St. John’s and St. John’s. St. Paul’s and Comino. The Habitats Hall, dedicated to the first curator of natural history, Giuseppe Despott, offers an overview of typical Maltese habitats such as woods, scrubland, cliffs, valleys and sandy shores, highlighting the diversity of birds and many wildlife species. The L. Mizzi Hall, containing around 850 pieces of rock and minerals as well as several works of art, showcases part of Lewis Mizzi’s mineral collection.
