Mollusc collection at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Mollusc research and collections have long been areas of strength at Te Papa. Roughly 7,000 mollusc species live in Aotearoa New Zealand, from our mountain peaks to the deep-sea trenches, and yet more species are known from the fossil record.

More than 80% of our living mollusc species occur nowhere else. Te Papa also holds a large collection of molluscs from other parts of the world. Our collection comprises approximately half a million records, and tens of millions of specimens, ranging from iconic ‘whoppers’ such as our almost 70 specimens of giant squid to tiny alpine land-snails barely a millimetre in length.