Natural History Museum, Port Louis

The Natural History Museum is the oldest museum in Mauritius and one of the oldest in southern Africa. It occupies the ground floor of the Mauritius Institute Building, itself listed as a National Heritage site. Constructed between 1880 and 1884, the building was designed by British architect M. Mann as a partial copy of the Colombo Museum in Sri Lanka.

The museum’s origins can be traced to 1826, when naturalists Julien Desjardins and Louis Bouton asked Governor Sir Lowry Cole to establish a museum in Mauritius. The Desjardins Museum eventually opened to the public on October 14, 1842, in a wing of the former Royal College in Port Louis. It remained there for 42 years before its collections were transferred to the newly completed Mauritius Institute Building in 1885. Consisting mainly of marine fauna and birds from the Mascarene Islands, these collections formed the basis of the present-day Natural History Museum.

The museum is particularly known for its displays of endemic and extinct species. Its most prized exhibit is a rare dodo skeleton collected around 1900 by Étienne Thirioux, a Mauritian barber and amateur naturalist. The specimen is especially valuable because its bones are believed to come from a single bird. Other displays explore the mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, marine life, rocks, and minerals of Mauritius and the wider Mascarene region.

Over the years, the museum has become an important center for the systematic collection, study, and documentation of the region’s fauna and flora. In 2000, it was officially proclaimed a National Museum, confirming its role in preserving and promoting the natural heritage of Mauritius.