Main Brazilian paleontological collections. This paper presents a summary of major paleontological collections in Brazil, without regard to institutions that are closed to reform or with predominantly didactic or academic collections. From thirty institutions listed, twelve of them are located in the southeast (Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Peiropolis, Ouro Preto, Sao Paulo, Rio Claro, Taubate and Monte Alto), ten in the northeast (Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Sergipe and Bahia), five in the southern (Mafra, Porto Alegre, Sao Leopoldo and Santa Maria), two in the northern region (Acre and Para), and one in central Brazilian region. The largest fossil collections in Brazil are in the Museu de Ciencias da Terra of the DNPM and the Museu Nacional, both in Rio de Janeiro, which gather around 260,000 specimens, even in Aracaju, Sergipe, is the third largest Brazilian paleontological collection, with approximately 38,000 fossils belonging to the Fundacao Paleontologica Phoenix. The most thematic collections are related to Cretaceous fossils, which is concordant with the abundance of Brazilian fossils of this age: in the northeast region, the collections are notables by the large number of invertebrates and fishes, and in Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, by their reptiles. Other thematic collections are in Rio Grande do Sul (Triassic reptiles), Sao Paulo (Mesozoic trace fossils), Santa Catarina (Paleozoic invertebrates), Ceara and Pernambuco (Siluro-Devonian trace fossils), and Ceara, Bahia, Minas Gerais and Acre (Cenozoic megafauna). The oldest museums of Brazil with paleontological collections are all centenarians: the Museu Nacional, established in 1818 in Rio de Janeiro, Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, opened in 1866 in Belem, and the Museu de Ciencia e Tecnica in Ouro Preto, created in 1884.