University of Copenhagen Zoological Museum

The Copenhagen Zoological Museum (Danish: Zoologisk Museum) was a separate zoological museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is now a part of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, which is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen. The separate museum location closed in 2022, but will reopen in 2025 (as part of the combined Natural History Museum) in new and considerably larger buildings in the northeastern corner of the Copenhagen Botanical Garden. Although the museum will be relocated, the research and storage facilities at its old location have been maintained.^[1]

University of Copenhagen Zoological Museum

Zoologisk museum
The museum the day before its final closure in 2022 (will reopen in 2025 at a separate location)
Established	1862
Location	Universitetsparken 15, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Type	Natural history museum
Director	Peter C. Kjærgaard
Website	http://zoologi.snm.ku.dk

History

The Zoological Museum is among the world's oldest natural history museums, as its collection was started by Ole Worm more than 350 years ago, although it was officially founded in 1862.^[2][3]

Collections

The zoological collections contains about 14 million specimens.^[1] The history of the collections reach back in time more than 200 years. Apart from rich collections of Danish animals, the museum has particularly strong representation of:

• The North Atlantic and Arctic (especially Greenland)
• The former Danish colonies in the West Indies
• East Africa (especially the Eastern Arc mountains)
• South American insects (especially butterflies)
• Philippines, Bismarck and Solomon Islands
• Deep Sea faunas
• Whale skeletons
• Material from several expeditions; Ingolf 1892, Galathea 2 (1950-52), Atlantide (1932), P.W. Lund (Lagoa Santa 1832–44)

Exhibitions

The Zoological Museum's permanent exhibition 'From pole to pole' showed animals from around the world in big displays. There was also a Charles Darwin exhibition (with the largest collection of Darwin specimens, mainly barnacles, outside the Natural History Museum, London) and collections covering animals in the Danish Realm. The museum has many important remains of recently extinct birds in storage, including the eyes and internal organs of the last two great auks, several specimens of the pied raven, and one of only two known complete skulls of the dodos that were taken to Europe in the 17th century. Other notable examples include the only known specimen of the spider Pardosa danica, some of the first discovered remains of the saola, and fossils of ancient animals like the transitional Ichthyostega and a Diplodocus nicknamed "Misty".^[2]

Gallery

• 
  Rain forest with orangutan
• 
  Antarctic display with penguins
• 
  One of two taxidermied great auks at the museum
• 
  "Misty", a Diplodocus dinosaur
• 
  Barnacles from Charles Darwin's collection, gifted to scientists at the university in 1854
• 
  Skeleton of an eastern moa, a species that was hunted to extinction shortly after the first humans arrived in New Zealand
• 
  Great grey owl, showing its body-size compared to its plumage
• 
  Glyptodon (shown) and saber-toothed cats are among the important prehistoric specimens collected by Peter Wilhelm Lund

References

1. "Zoologisk Museum lukker og skal pakkes ned. Men hvordan flytter man en dinosaur?". Kristeligt Dagblad. 20 October 2022. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
2. "På besøg på Zoologisk museum". zooniverse.dk. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
3. "Zoologisk Museums historie". Copenhagen Zoological Museum. Retrieved 13 July 2018.

External links

• "Natural History Museum of Denmark". University of Copenhagen. Retrieved 2014-08-30.
• Torben Wolff. "The history of the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen". University of Copenhagen. Retrieved 2014-08-30.
• "Series of pictures from the museum" (in Danish). Retrieved 2014-08-30.

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