Reptiles and birds
Reptiles and birds are related to each other. They are also stored together in the Natural History Museum Basel. From dinosaurs to modern-day owl skeletons, our archosaurs collection is exceedingly well stocked.
It has long since been known that birds are the last group of carnivorous dinosaurs. This astonishing fact has been proven through scientific studies on carnivorous dinosaur and bird skeletons. Just like our mammal collection, we also have a large collection of birds, reptiles and amphibians which encourage us to carry out these studies.
The Natural History Museum Basel owns several hundred skeletons of recent tortoises, crocodiles, lizards and, of course, birds. This means our archosaurs collection, with around 7,000 fossils, is an important comparison collection.
Dinosaurs have never formed a major focus of our collection. Nevertheless, thanks to the well-preserved remains of the Swiss dinosaur Cetiosauriscus greppini from Moutier and the Plateosaurus from Niederschönthal, it is among the leading dinosaur collections. We also have impressive flying reptiles such as the holotype of Aurorazhdarcho primordius. This is one of the important objects for this group's evolutionary history.
