ZSL has a vast collection of both old and new images.
With drawings dating back as far as 1560, we can provide images of artworks, scientific drawings and historic prints as well as present-day digital imagery of animals, architecture, field conservation work, horticulture and landscapes.
We also have over 30,000 images available offline, so if you cannot find what you are looking for we will do our best to find it for you. For bespoke requests please contact - commercialfilming@zsl.org detailing how the image will be used.
If you are looking for historic images, please contact library@zsl.org.
As a commercial image library, ZSL will charge for use of its images for educational or commercial use or public display.
Our historic images include black and white photographs from 1860 to the 1940s, prints of various types in historic books such as engravings and lithographs. Additionally, the collections include original artworks which can be searched in our online Library catalogue.
Our images are frequently used in books and occasionally at exhibitions such as Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art, 1500-1860 held at the Barber Institute, 2021-22.
If you are wanting to use images from the 'Proceedings' or 'Transactions of the Zoological Society' permissions can be requested via the Wiley website.
Prices start from £50, plus VAT.
- A Two-toed Sloth hanging from a cut branch, which is held by a keeper. London Zoo, September 1925. Photographed by Frederick William Bond.
- Drawing of a scaly anteater in the manuscripts of Samuel Richard Tickell 'Animals of India', 1833-72.
- Lithograph of blue and yellow macaw by Edward Lear in 'Illustrations of the family of Psittacidae, or parrots,...', 1832.
- Engraving of Banana with teucer owl butterfly and rainbow whiptail lizard in Maria Merian's 'Dissertation sur la génération et les transformations des insectes de Suriname...', 1726.
