Stashed away underground beneath a popular museum in Northumberland lies a vast collection of rare and precious items.
From hippo skulls to extinct birds, stuffed lions to poison spears, the Natural History Society of Northumbria's collection is one of the best in the world.
With more than half a million items kept in storage under the Discovery Museum in Newcastle, cataloguing the huge assortment is a lifetime's work.
The collection dates back to the mid-18th century and includes some items that are seen as priceless because of their rarity.
Dan Gordon, Keeper of Biology at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, said: "The oldest parts of the collection date from the 18th century and were the private collection of a local aristocrat called Marmaduke Tunstall.
"Over the years it was passed on and came into the possession of a local society and it's important for a number of reasons, one being the very old and valuable items.
"We have records for half a million objects but there may well be more, and cataloguing them all is a lifetime's work. We are still discovering new things in the collection."
One of the rarest items is a juvenile Great Auk, a flightless bird that is now extinct but which was once commonplace in Great Britain.
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