Natural History Museum of Funchal
The oldest museum in the Madeira Archipelago is housed in the São Pedro Palace, in Funchal. The collections of the Museum of Natural History comprise over 40 000 items ranging from species of fish, birds, terrestrial and marine mammals, and marine reptiles to insects and other invertebrates. A must see is samples of plants, rocks and minerals representative of the archipelago, as well as marine fossils from Porto Santo.
Located on the ground floor, the Municipal Aquarium features 15 tanks, allowing the visitor to enjoy a sampling of the most important species of the coastal marine fauna of Madeira. The Museum also has a 560 m2 Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Garden where visitors can observe dozens of medicinal and aromatic plants, as well as indigenous and endemic plants of the archipelago.