National Museum - Colombo

National Museum of Colombo, also known as Sri Lanka National Museum and Colombo Museum, is situated in Colombo 07 and is the largest museum in Sri Lanka. The Museum was founded in 1877 by a British Governor; Sir William Henry Gregory, during the time Sri Lanka was under the British Monarchy.

The Museum preserves national treasures and artefacts of the country and has three main sections; Natural Science Section, Cultural section and a library.

Natural Science section has again arranged into four main sub sections; Entomology, Zoology, Botany and Geology.


Entomology section; This section has a collection of over 95000 dry mounted insect specimens and over 5000 wet preserved insect specimens. Dry mounted insect specimens such as Lepidopterons (butterflies & moths), Coleopterans (beetles), Dipterans (mosquitoes & flies), Homoptereans (leafhoppers & planthoppers), Orthopterans ( grasshoppers, locusts& crickets), Dermapterans (earwigs),Neuropterans (antlions),Odonata (dragonflies & damselflies) are stored in cabinets and wet insects specimens such as Hymenopterans (ants, bees & wasps), Hemipterans ( plant bugs), Isopterans(termites) are stored in alcohol. A number of spider species in Sri Lanka can also be found within the wet insect specimens.

Zoology section; this section holds the single largest faunal collection of the Country and can be used to assess the faunal diversity in Sri Lanka.