The palaeontological collections of the SMNK comprise about 450,000 specimens and specimen complexes, which are documented in catalogues and card files. The palaeontological collections are grouped as follows:

• Invertebrates (excluding insects) (sorted by time period and locality)
• Insects (sorted by time period and locality)
• Vertebrates (sorted by taxa and locality; the Synapsida are still unsorted)
• Quarternary (sorted by taxa and locality)
• Palaeobotany (sorted by time period and locality)
• Ichnotaxa and coproliths (sorted by time period and locality)

Areas of focus in the vertebrate collection, grouped by time period and locality:

• Quarternary mammals – Upper Rhine Graben
• Early Miocene – Höwenegg/Öhningen
• Middle Oligocene – Unterfeld clay pit
• Middle Eocene – Messel pit
• Muschelkalk – Kraichgau
• Permian – Kupferschiefer

Specialties:

• Late Permian tetrapods from the "Korbach Fissure"
• Fishes, especially bony fishes
• Mastodonsaurs of the Upper Buntsandstein - Cappel
• Pterosaurs
• Crocodilians
• Tertiary birds
• Original Frenzen collection (Jurassic microfossils)
• Middle Pleistocene mammals from Mauer (Geol.-Pal. Institute Heidelberg)
• Artifacts
• Cambrian Burgess Shale – Wilhelm Paulcke Collection