Animal life
What is Zoology?
Zoology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of animals.
It embraces all forms of animal study, from the components of the body and the vital processes that sustain life, to the relations of individual animals or animal groups with one another and their environment.
Image: Wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus (click to enlarge)
Collections
Because zoology is such a huge subject, it is divided into a number of different areas of study. Those which we focus on in the Ulster Museum include morphology, genetics and evolution, taxonomy, ecology, and zoogeography.
The zoology collections contain over 350,000 specimens of insects, shells, mammals, marine invertebrates, birds and their eggs from Northern Ireland and beyond.
These collections were given by or bought from generations of zoology enthusiasts – amateur, professional and academic alike – over the last 200 years. The collections are used for exhibitions, to answer enquiries and for research.
Mammals
The mammal collection contains over 2,000 specimens of animal skins, mounts and skeletal material, mainly from Northern Ireland.An excellent collection of whale and dolphin skeletons has been built up from animals that have become stranded on our shores. One of the world’s rarest specie...
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Birds
The bird collection contains around 4,000 mounted birds, 2,000 cabinet skins and over 5,000 clutches of birds’ eggs. Most of the specimens are from Britain and Ireland.More than 900 of the mounted birds were prepared by the Belfast taxidermy firm Sheals, established in 1856 by James Sheals ...
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Marine Invertebrates
The marine invertebrate collections include most species of larger animals found in Irish waters.The shell collection contains specimens from around the world with many rare species and spectacular display specimens. There are some representatives of all the major groups. Image: purple su...
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Insects and Invertebrates
The Animal Kingdom is made up of two main groups – animals with backbones (vertebrates) and animals without backbones (invertebrates). The vertebrates include fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals. The invertebrates, a very much larger group include insects, animals with shells (mol...
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Wildlife Art
From the first cave paintings of animals to the development of digital photography, illustration has played an essential role in the history of zoology.The museum has an extensive collection of nineteenth and twentieth- century zoological illustration, comprising around 400 items of paintings, dr...
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Books, images and archives
The zoology department has an extensive collection of books on natural history. It also has complete runs of many scientific and natural history journals – access to these can be provided on request.Notable books are:
Henry Seebohm’s The Geographical Distribution of the Family Charad...
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Ask an Expert
If you would like further information about this collection you may contact the
curator by following this link and
completing the short form.