The vertebrate collection
The collection of vertebrates includes fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. There are over 100,000 vertebrates in the museum’s collections.
The mammalian collection
The mammalian collection consists of more than 10,000 specimens. Approximately 3,000 of them are mounted or stored as skins, and almost 2,000 are in alcohol. The collection contains many rarities, including the skin of a Tasmanian wolf, which has been extinct as a species since 1933. It also includes large, unique collections from Sulawesi, Indonesia and from Madagascar. The whole mammalian collection is searchable in our database.
The bird collection
The bird collection has more than 30.000 specimens, the majority of which are bird skins but there are also skeletons, stuffed birds and a few in alcohol - around 550 specimens. About half of the bird skins come from Swedish birds and half from species outside Sweden. The museum's collection of birds includes rare species such as the extinct passenger pigeon and sub-fossil skeletons of the great auk. Among other things, the collections have interesting specimens from Ecuador, Sudan and Indonesia. Most of the mounted specimens can be seen in the exhibitions. The entire bird collection, with a few exceptions, is searchable in our database. You can also read about our egg collection here.
Reptile and amphibian collection
There are about 18,000 specimens of reptiles and amphibians in the herpetological collection, distributed over about 9,000 posts. The major part of the material comes from Europe and the Mediterranean, Western Asia, Northern South America, Indonesia and South Africa. The collection of adder species, mainly from Europe and Asia, is a significant part of the whole. There are many type specimens in the collection.
Fish collection
The fish collection consists of just less than 10,000 items and roughly twice the number of specimens. The great majority of fish items are preserved in alcohol, while around one hundred specimens are dry-mounted. The collection of Swedish fish material was started around 1840, while the first foreign fish are from the beginning of the 1900s.
Most of the foreign fish items come from major expeditions, such as the Pacific expedition of Sixten Bock (1917-18) and the Swedish Deep-sea expedition of Orvar Nybelin (1947-48). The museum material has been the basis for many new descriptions of fish, and the type material is in the museum’s type collection.
CONTACT THE VERTEBRATE COLLECTION
Magnus Gelang
Phone: +46 (0)10-441 42 43 Mobile: +46 (0)76 141 85 71
E-mail: magnus.gelang@vgregion.se
