Zoological Museum Collections

Vasile Vicol taught biology and geography at various schools in Mureș County and, later, in Târgu Mureș. He started collecting, systematizing, and researching Lepidoptera as early as 1957.

Marg-Wladimir Manoliu was born in 1940 in Solca, Suceava County. He was a professional engineer, a nature lover, and a very passionate butterfly collector since childhood. He passed away in 2019. His descendants donated his impressive butterfly collection to the Zoological Museum.

The diversity of flora and fauna around his native town stimulated the interest of the young Béla Kis for nature and especially for insects. He attended Bethlen Gábor High School in his hometown. In 1946, Béla Kis began his studies at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Bolyai University in Cluj (today’s Babeș-Bolyai University). In 1950, after graduating from the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Béla Kis became an assistant at the Zoology Department of the university. He started his scientific work in 1951.

In 1951, Lucia Dușa became curator of the Zoology Museum at Victor Babeș University and later served as chief curator until her retirement in 1985.

The distinguished coleopterologist René Jeannel was a French entomologist. Between 1920 and 1930, he worked as deputy director of the Institute of Speleology, founded by Emil Racoviță – the first institute of its kind worldwide.

The collection comprises about 600 spiders of 159 species.

It is one of the oldest collections of spiders in Romania. Most specimens were collected in Transylvania between 1864 and 1871. However, the collection also includes exotic species.

The herpetological collections (amphibians and reptiles) contain about 5,000 specimens, representing 45 species of amphibians and 120 species of reptiles.

Ottó Herman (1835–1914) was a naturalist, zoologist, and ethnographer. Between 1864 and 1871, as an employee of the Zoological Museum in Cluj, he began to study spiders, birds, and fish.

This is the oldest Lepidoptera collection in Romania. The first catalog was published in 1850.

The Zoological Museum’s oology collection (bird eggs) contains about 3,500 pieces. The collection includes the oldest specimens in the museum, collected in 1848.

The Zoological Museum’s osteological collection comprises 898 specimens, primarily consisting of skulls.

The Zoological Museum of Babeș-Bolyai University has one of the oldest and most significant bird collections in Romania. It was established in 1859 and has been continually enriched with specimens to this day. The collection includes specimens of both exotic species and Romanian fauna.