The Gallery was inaugurated in 1898 as part of l' Expositions universelles de Paris of 1900 and was the creation of professors Albert Gaudry (Professor of Paleontology) and Georges Pouchet (Professor of Comparative Anatomy) who wished to preserve and present to the public collections of great historic and scientific importance. The collections derive from the great expeditions of the traveller-naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries as well as from the ménagerie' (zoo) of the Jardin des Plantes.