The Museo Civico di Zoologia is a

natural history museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

in Rome, central

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It is situated next to the Bioparc (

Zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoo ...

) and can be entered by the Zoo or through the entrance on via

Ulisse Aldrovandi Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carl Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history st ...

. Founded in 1932, it is said to continue the natural history tradition of the Gabinetto di Zoologia dell'Università Pontificia and the collections date from 1792.

Importance

It is recognized as an institute of national importance by the ''Ministero per la Università e la Ricerca Scientifica''. There are collections of entomology, malacology, osteology,

ornithology Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

, herpetology, ichthyology and mammalology.There are five million specimens in total(

molluscs Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is estim ...

insects Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of j ...

, birds and

mammals Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...

and fossils). The displays are modern, with over 1000 square metres of multi-sensorial or interactive stations exhibitions and three-dimensional reconstructions. A biodiversity display includes sections on the significance of sex in the animal world; adaptations in borderline environments and ecosystems. other displays are more traditional with two ornithology halls a gallery on "Arrigoni degli Oddi" and two halls of mammals. The museum contains the zoological collections of Conte Arrigoni degli Oddi.

Convention

The museum is the result of a convention made between the municipality of Rome and the

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a public research university located in Rome, Ita ...

. It is one of three centres, second in the university, conserves specimens of

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s and vertebrates including fish, amphibians and small mammals. It is at Museo di Zoologia, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza, Viale dell'Università 32, 00100 Roma. The third, at Via Catone, contains entomological collections retained by the university.

References

External links

* * * {{authority control Natural history museums in Italy Museums in Rome Museums established in 1932 Rome Q. III Pinciano