Free Natural History Identification Service

You may find an unusual creepy-crawlie wandering around your house, or see a plant in your garden that you don't recognise - if so, we are here to help you through our free identification service.

We get many enquiries each week, and as well as allowing people to know what they have found, it also enables us to keep track of the Natural History of Southend, both the distribution of any existing species, and any wildlife newcomers to the area!

Many people bring insects etc that they have found in for us to identify, which is ideal. However, we can often identify species for you through pictures that you send to us!

Simply take a photo and e-mail it though to us. Some notes for this are given below:

• Please try to send a good photo of whatever you would like us to identify - the clearer the image, the easier it is for us.

• Please keep image file sizes under 1MB

• Let us know where and when it was found, this can help us to confirm its identification.

• e-mail your images to:   museumssouthend.gov.uk

         (n.b. To avoid junk e-mail the above is not a hyperlink - please type this address into your e-mail rather than copy & paste)

• We will endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible. However, please bear in mind that a particular specialist may not be available immediately.

We look forward to hearing from you...