Palaeontology Collections

Meet the famous Bernissart Iguanodons, Ben the Plateosaurus, Stan the T. rex, Diplodocus, Maiasaura, Olorotitan, and many more...

A journey through time to meet 11 gigantic animals that lived after the dinosaurs. An ENOURMOUS chance to feel small as can be next to these live-sized giants!

Follow the adventures of Life on Earth, from the very first primitive life forms to Man, including giant fish with formidable jaws, impressive predatory birds, legged whales... and even a little foray into the future.

Thirty relatively complete iguanodon skeletons were discovered  in a coal mine in Bernissart, at the end of the 19th century.

Citizen scientists have donated tens of thousands of fossil shark and ray teeth to the Institute. They were excavated at the clay quarry of Egem in West Flanders, and bear witness to the rich diversity in the shallow tropical sea around 50 million years ago in our regions.

An international team of paleontologists has uncovered a remarkably rich and diverse array of fossils from the Early Cretaceous, in Jezzine, South Lebanon. “It is rare getting a glimpse on the diversity of such an early terrestrial ecosystem for this continental area”, says paleontologist Ninon Robin,  Institute of Natural Sciences.

Paleontologists have rediscovered a rich collection of insects and other fossil arthropods from a Chinese coal mine. It includes numerous cockroach wings essentially of Moscovian age (about 310 million years ols). These fossils were thought to have been lost for decades.

Palaeontologists have uncovered a fossilized tooth from a white shark embedded in the heel bone of a seal, shedding light on a dramatic event that unfolded 4.5 million years ago.