| Most birds in the Liège Museum of Zoology have been collected during the 19th century. Between 1835 and 1871, Theodore Lacordaire acquired skins from South-East Asia through Francis Laporte Comte de Castelnau. Later, between 1872 and 1910, Edouard Van Beneden bought Belgian birds. At present, some 6,000 avian specimens are recorded as mounted skins, skeletons, skulls, eggs or organs preserved in alcohol. Since the 1970s, new specimens added to the collection are either gifts from private collections or fresh birds found dead. As we achieved to computerise the collections in a FileMaker Pro database, statistics by taxonomy, geographical origin or other criteria can be extracted. The museum also houses a few specimens of threatened or extinct species. The... |
