Zoology Museum of Kazan federal University is one of the oldest in Russia. As for the variety of species and historical value, it is one of the richest museums of our country.
The Museum arrived at the University as a part of the Prince Potemkin's unique collection. Among its units are stuffed extinct zebra quagga (only 8 stuffed quaggas left in the whole world), reptile tuatara, Paradise birdwing (“Ornithoptera paradise”), etc.
At present, the Museum consists of eight halls, situated in the facade of the Eastern wing of the Main University building. The Museum collection includes exhibits of 23 animals' types. Its stores enumerate 3,500 samples of vertebrates, 750 insects (30,000-40,000 samples), and 4,000 of other invertebrates.
About 1,400 exhibits were considered by specialists to be very valuable. Among them there is a collection of Parnassius butterflies from the territory of former USSR, vestimentipher from the Hwang -de-Fuca Pacific mountain ridge, Sphenodon punctatus, "flying dragon" from Java island, Myrrteria cinerea, Ciconiidae, Branta, Aegypius monachus, Grus leucogeranus, Pyrrhura cruentata, and finally the pride and symbol of the Museum - zebra from South America (Equus quagga), completely exterminated by people probably in 1878 and endangered in zoos by the year of 1883. At present, there are only nine stuffed quagga zebras all over the world and the only one in Russia is in the Zoology Museum of Kazan University.
The Museum possesses the so-called holotypes, i.e. samples which served for the first description of a given animal species. There are twenty species of flatworms and ten species of fishes.
While being designed the Museum stand had systematic order, beginning with Protozoa and a stall with primates in the end. Such arrangement implies perfect visual demonstration of exhibits and lets visitors trace the main stages of the Earth life development, introducing various representatives of the contemporary animal kingdom. Nowadays the location of some groups of animals in the stalls doesn't correspond to up-to-date knowledge of their place in the systematic classification. However, we decided to keep the initial order of the exhibition.