The first natural history collections of the 18th century were results of the desire of collecting, especially of rare or strange properties. These are start points of later museums of natural history. Although the modern museums are not such old „horror shows“, and the collections are one of their essentials. The new and modern collections are the main differences which devide a museum from any other exhibition institutions.

Natural history collections are treasure vaults. The museum’s vistor don’t notice these. The collections open the door for them only on special occasions. But collections establish the national and international reputation of a museum.

The importance of natural history collections was shown very impressive again on the UN-conference of Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where the registration and the protection of the worldwide biodiversity was demanded.

At present natural history collections are more than an archive of dusty properties. Modern methods of analytics, especially these of the genetic, are used in the work with the collection. Today in well documented collections it is possible to obtain informations in anexpected abundance. In such collections the biological research find answers about origin, phylogeny, ontogeny, and relationships or other characteristics of species. Collections can record formerly borderlines of distribution, first records of areal extensions and many other subjects.

Property is under obligation! These term is true especially of scientific collections. A museum has an ethic and a legal duty to preserve the collections. A collector has deposit his treasures (often a result of his whole life’s work) in the museum in deep trust of competent cultivation, furthermore application and of permanence of „a secure place“ - as the collector believed.

Today the laws allowed only with the few exceptions the deposition of dead or collected organisms into a museum’s collection. Our museum is full aware of the big responsibility.

Increase of collections is not only a added value. Much more higher as the remarkable material value is the scientific value, which can not be measure in Euro. To use and increase this value the collections are open for scientists from all over the world.