Of Whales and Dinosaurs: The Story of Singapore's Natural History Museum

Singapore's current natural history museum officially began life in 1878 as the Raffles Museum, although its origins date back to the establishment of the Singapore Library in 1849 and, conceptually at least, to the Raffles Institution in 1823.

Kevin YL Tan charts the complex development and history of the vast collection of geological, biological and paleontological specimens that shifted location all over the island until in April 2015 the new Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (named after a successful businessman whose legacy foundation was a key benefactor) was opened. The collection comprises thousands of mounted exhibits on display for public consumption and hundreds of thousands of raw scientific specimens used for academic research. The museum has emerged as a world-class institution that now hold seminars, conferences and training courses for researchers, curators and other natural history scholars from Singapore and around the world.