The Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Natural History Museum is a

natural history museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

in the

Prince of Songkla University Prince of Songkla University (PSU) ( th, มหาวิทยาลัยสงขลานครินทร์; ) is the first university in southern Thailand, established in 1967. The name of the university was granted by the King Bhumibol ...

in southern Thailand. It was originally known as the Natural History Museum of Prince of Songkla University (PSU Museum). After a renovation, it was renamed and re-opened on 14 January 2008 by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. The museum's main building is located in the most west part of the Faculty of Science. The building contains both exhibition and collection areas. The PSU Museum is a university's funded unit, having equal status to a faculty. However, it is still under inspection and assistance of the Faculty of Science. The museum works closely to the Department of Biology and the Excellent Centre of Biodiversity of Peninsular Thailand (CBIPT) as all three institutes are working on biodiversity research and conservation. The museum's main collections are zoological collections, with only a small geological collection stored and displayed. The museum do not include the botanical collections as they are stored in the department's PSU Herbarium. Its zoological collections contains 25,000 specimens of 2,500 species of fauna. Some significant collections include

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water (or air) that are unable to propel themselves against a current (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucia ...

, mollusc (in particular cephalopod),

echinoderm An echinoderm () is any member of the phylum Echinodermata (). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the s ...

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

and

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with c ...

. There are several significant type specimens, including

Laotian Giant Flying Squirrel The Laotian giant flying squirrel (''Biswamoyopterus laoensis'') is an arboreal, flying squirrel endemic to Laos. It was the second described member in the genus ''Biswamoyopterus'', after being first collected in September 2012 by scientists res ...

and Thongaree’s Disc-nosed Bat (the type species of genus '' Eudiscoderma'').

External links

* University museums in Thailand Natural history museums in Thailand Songkhla Buildings and structures in Songkhla province Tourist attractions in Songkhla province {{Thailand-museum-stub