Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Reunion Natural History Museum, inaugurated on August 14, 1855, is the first of its kind in the Indian Ocean. Housed in a building built in 1834 at Saint-Denis, it initially housed the colonial council before being transformed into a museum under the impulse of Governor Louis Henri Hubert-Delisle (Order of 1 February 1854). A commission led by Mayor Gustave Manès and naturalists such as Charles Coquerel organized its opening to the public on 18 August 1855, with the mission of preserving the natural resources of the region, particularly those of the Indian Sea.

The collections, originally made up of purchases (peals of animals from South Africa) and donations (birds from China, minerals from Paris, local grasslands), quickly became rich thanks to the expeditions of Auguste Lantz, curator from 1864 to 1893. At the end of the 19th century, the museum had 25,000 objects, participating in universal exhibitions (Paris 1866, 1888; Marseille 1906), where he won medals. The cyclones of 1945 and 1948, then the collapse of a ceiling in 1955, seriously damaged the collections, reduced to 12,000 pieces in 1990.

Ranked a historic monument in 1978, the museum stands up with 560,000 specimens in 2017, including rare species (ward's perch extinct, human fetuses, dodo skeleton). His exhibitions highlight the heritage of curators such as Marcel Ducrot (Cartography of the Piton de la Fournaise) and Sonia Ribes-Beaudemolin (enrichment of collections in the 21st century). Today managed by the Conseil départemental de La Réunion, it remains a key place for the preservation of the regional and oceanic natural heritage.

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