National Museum of Natural History, Mdina MALTA

31/05/2026

Final month of our temporary exhibition!

16/05/2026

Yesterday’s curatorial museum archives tour was a great experience, and we are still overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and curiosity shown by everyone who joined us! The engaged expressions, thoughtful questions, and genuine excitement reminded us why our work matters so much.

Your support and participation encourage us to continue making the knowledge, history, and science in our care more accessible to all.

We look forward to welcoming you again soon for more discoveries behind the scenes! 📚🌿✨

(Special thanks to Stefan Azzopardi for sharing his pictures!)

11/05/2026

✨ Thank you for the feature, GuideMeMalta.com!

🌿 Dear visitors, you have until the end of June to catch our current exhibition. Grab your friends and make your plans now! 🐦‍⬛

The exhibition is running until the 30th June!

02/05/2026

A souvenir from Malta’s ancient ocean… in Dublin! 🇲🇹➡️🇮🇪

Spotted at the National Museum of Ireland, this is a fossil tooth of the giant shark Otodus megalodon, collected in Malta by H.W. Feilden.

Feilden studied Malta closely, even publishing a work on local landsnails (1879) and some notes on local geology.

From a prehistoric sea, to a 19th-century naturalist, to a museum far from home: this is how museum objects carry stories across generations.

30/04/2026

Today we revisited one of our more unusual historical collections: rock-boring bivalves! 🪨🐚

Among the highlights is a remarkable specimen of Bryopa melitensis, originally collected from the Grand Harbour and attributed with certainty to the Maltese naturalist Giuseppe Mamo (1793–1865). This species is extraordinary: it lives embedded within a self-excavated rock chamber, forming a calcareous tube that protrudes outward to interact with its environment.

This particular specimen is not only scientifically important but historically irreplaceable, as it may be the only object left in Malta (and the second worldwide) bearing Mamo’s own calligraphy. See if you can make it out in the second picture!

While at least this specimen can be firmly linked to Mamo, others in the collection may also trace back to his work: a possibility we continue to investigate 🔍

Collections like this remind us how much knowledge can be locked inside even the most unassuming stone.

28/04/2026

✅ We recently took this photo of a fossil from our collection… but can you guess what it is? 👀🦴

Here’s a tiny clue: it comes from the Globigerina Limestone Formation, deposited in deep sea between 23 and 14 million years ago.

Drop your guesses below! ⬇️



EDIT: The fossil is indeed a stingray barb! Taxonomically, these animals form part of the order Myliobatiformes. They are closely related to sharks but have some unique characteristics, including a serrated spine on their tail, just like our fossil specimen. Congratulations to those who guessed correctly!

22/04/2026

🐬🦇🐝 Just a reminder that our latest exhibition is open and will run until the end of June. Do not miss it! 🦗🐦‍⬛🦎

22/04/2026

Thank you, Dr Dean Lomax - Palaeontologist, for taking the time to visit our sister site at Għar Dalam Cave and Museum. It was a pleasure to have you there, and we hope to welcome you soon at the National Museum of Natural History, Mdina MALTA!

20/04/2026

Why do curators get so excited about a dusty, handwritten note? Take a look at this incredible rediscovery in our archives! 📂✨

These are Quaternary fossil snails collected by the renowned Giuseppe Despott (our very first natural history curator), who also hand-wrote the accompanying label. ✍️🐚

Without Despott’s note, this collection would just be a pretty box of shells, and almost useless for scientific purposes. However, that tiny piece of paper transforms these fossils into a valuable dataset. In fact, this collection contains several newly discovered records that will be the subject of a formal publication. 📈🔬

Labels tell the story of the collectors themselves: their handwriting, their methods, and their travels. Because of this documentation, the scientific and historical value of these snails has skyrocketed! 🚀

Every museum object has a story, and sometimes the most important part of that story is written on a tiny, century-old piece of recycled paper. 🏷️

19/01/2026