Representativeness of the mammalian collection of the Zoological Museum of Lviv University

Abstract

During collection inventorization of the Zoological museum of Lviv University we found that there are nearly 3800 exhibits belonging to 258 mammal species of the world’s fauna. Most of the samples (68 %) represent the order of rodents (Rodentia). In systematic aspect, mammalian collections consist of representatives of 20 orders. The collections were founded by 264 persons, 28 of them made the main contribution. It is necessary to mention species listed in the Red Date Book of Ukraine: one species belongs to the category Extinct in the Wild (European bison), two — Extinct (Schreibers’s long-fingered bat, European ground squirrel), three — Data Deficient (bicolored shrew, lesser blind mole rat, gray dwarf hamster), five — to the category Not Evaluated (Nathusius’ pipistrelle, European otter, short-tailed weasel, European polecat, common hamster). In addition, 9 species are rare, 12 belong to the category Endangered, and 18 are vulnerable in our country. Among representatives of mammals, in the museum’s collections there are 229 species included into the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Version 2015-4) belonging to six conservation status categories. The rarest ones among them are the species, which belong to the Critically Endangered category, such as the black-and-white ruffed lemur, diademed sifaka, Sunda pangolin, European mink, black rhinoceros, long-tailed chinchilla.

Keywords

• mammalian collections
• representativeness
• zoological museum
• Lviv University