The collections

Arctic fox Alopex lagopus from Svalbard. Photo: Karl Frafjord

Today, the zoological collections contain ca. 162 000 objects. Of these ca. 95 000 are insects and spiders (incl. 24 000 Coleoptera, 24 000 Lepidoptera and 26 000 Diptera), ca. 50 000 marine invertebrates (incl. ca. 12 500 Crustacea and 25 000 Mollusca) and ca. 9500 vertebrates (4837 birds, 970 birds' eggs, 1857 mammals, 1861 fish and 36 amphibians/reptiles).

The vast majority originate from North Norway, Svalbard, the Norwegian and the Barents Seas. The vertebrate collection and much of that of the invertebrates has recently been indexed in computer databases, while the remainder are either card-indexed or not indexed at all. The department welcomes the use of the collections in research.