Fish collections
This collection includes representatives of the ichthyofaunas of most of the freshwater reservoirs and inland seas of N Palaearctic, as well as of some aquatories of the World Ocean. Less completely represented are faunas of continental waters of other continents, especially of South America and Africa. However, receipt of new materials from these regions increased recently due to efforts of Russian ichthyologists.
Currently, collections of the Section equal approximately 21,000 storage units. Each of the latter is a sample of one to several specimens of particular species collected simultaneously in the same site. Collection includes representatives of more than 4,000 species belonging to more than 400 families of 56 orders. However, different groups are represented with varying degrees of completeness.
Registration systems adopted in the Section presumes that an individual catalogue number is assigned to each storage item.
Several catalogues are being kept.
Systematic catalogue is the basic one, it consists of the cards, each for an storage
item. The cards are arranged taxonomically at order and family levels and
alphabetically at genus and species levels. In alphabetic catalogue, all
species arranged alphabetically regardless of their taxonomic allocation. This
serves as a directory to facilitates search for information on particular
species represented in the collection. In geographic catalogue, all cards are
arranged in accordance to the regions from which the specimens came.
There is a separate type catalogue. Information provided herewith is more extensive and includes data not only the specimens themselves but on relevant publications, as well.
The most part of the fish collections is curated by the Section head, Dr. E.D. Vasil'eva (phone number 629-49-06). Some deep water fish collections are under curation of Dr. Yu.N. Shcherbachev (phone number 129-20-18).