Research & Collections
Over the past 112 years, the Museum has acquired 24.7 million items telling the full story of Hawai'i and the Pacific. These items include over 2.4 million cultural artifacts representing Native Hawaiian, Pacific Island, and Hawai'i immigrant life, more than 115,000 historical publications, 1 million historical photographs, films, works of art, audio recordings and manuscripts.
As a result of over a century of field work in Hawai'i and the Pacific, we also care for Natural History collections of over 22 million specimens of plant and animal life, including those that are extinct. These collections range from throughout the Pacific, but are the largest in the world for Hawaiian plants and animals as well as those from New Guinea, the Philippines, and SE Asia.
The collections of Bishop Museum have been the source of hundreds of publications describing thousands of species newly discovered to science. Many of these scientific papers are published by Bishop Museum Press, and are continually being accessed by the public through Bishop Museum's Library and Archives. The Museum's natural history scientists include some of the world's experts in their field.
Have you found a plant or animal in your house or on a hike or swim and would like to know what it is? Ask a scientist from Bishop Museum about the flora and fauna of Hawai‘i.