The zoological teaching collection of the Department of Biology comprises 489 bird specimens, 106 mammal specimens and 150 skull specimens, as well as a number of teaching models from Somso, inclusion and wet specimens in collection jars and a large number of mussels and snail shells.
The collection dates back to the year the University of Mainz was founded in 1946. Immediately after the Second World War, a collection of bird bellows from the surgeon and amateur ornithologist Otto Natorp (1876-1956) and a collection of small mammal bellows from the zoologist Gerd Heinrich (1896-1984) came to the Institute; these two collections formed the basis of today's collection, which is constantly being supplemented by further specimens.
The objects are used in particular to carry out zoological identification exercises in courses offered by the Department of Evolutionary Biology.
From the Collection
