History of the Department of Zoology

Founded in 1810, "Természetiek Tára" [Store of Naturals] was the predecessor of our institution. As an independent unit, the Deparment of Zoology was established in 1870, along with the other scientific department.

Staff of the Department of Zoology in the 1890s; top row - Jenő Daday, Géza Horváth, Sándor Mocsáry, Gyula Madarász;second row - Kálmán Kertész, Dezső Kuthy, sr., János Pável

However, each of them remained in the building of the National Museum for a certain time. The current building under 13 Baross str. that still houses the whole invertebrate collections  was occupied in 1928. The collections of mammals and birds moved to the attic of the Ludovika 15 years ago.
The number of the preserved specimens reached one million in 1902, and prior to the WWII the collections had nearly 3 million items.

Building of the Department of Zoology in 1953. Back then it was only three storeys high.

 A significant loss was caused by fire in the revolution of 1956 which destroyed complete collections (and state of knowledge on the affected groups with it). Due to international aid and intensive collecting efforts, today the number of specimens reaches nearly 8 million in our 13 zoological collections.

Part of the butterfly collection of Tobias Koy