European Ocean Biodiversity Information System

The fish collection holds about 14 000 specimens, about 4 500 Swedish items and 2 800 items of 'exotic displays'. (In our museum terminology, everything foreign is 'exotic'.) Our museum has a long history of ichthyologic research, where Orvar Nybelin has been a prominent name. Our material has served as the foundation for several new species descriptions of fish. The type material is held in the museum’s type collection (see above). A large part of the fish material is preserved in alcohol, but a few hundred specimens are stuffed or just plain casts. The collection of Swedish fishes started as early as during the 1840s. The first exotic fishes were added to the collections at the beginning of the 20th century. The museum has sequences of valuable material, which are used by scientists in different contexts. A lot of the foreign fish material originate from worldwide expeditions, such as the Pacific Ocean Expedition (1917-18: Bock) and the Swedish Deep Sea Expedition (1947-48: Nybelin).