Natural history department

The natural history department has been working with temporary interruptions since the establishment of the Museum until today. The initial collection was a gift from the head of the county, Emil Talian from Kanjiža, Turkey, a world traveler and hunter. Today’s collection of the Natural History Department was created by taking over the collections of the Higher Pedagogical School – Department of Biology from Zrenjanin and the First Gymnasium (today the Zrenjanin High School) and pieces that were inherited from the time of the existence of the Natural History Department from 1911. In recent decades, many objects have arrived in the museum as part of gift collections, or they were collected as part of field research (botanical material).

The fund of the Department of Natural History consists of the following collections: Geo-paleontological, Botanical, Zoological, Collection of liquid preparations, Collection of studies and photo library. The geo-paleontological collection is consists of zoo and herbal -paleontological material, as well as various types of marsh loess, sandstone, eruptive rocks and loess with fossil remains. The most valuable exhibit – the fossil remains of the mammoth Mammuthus primigenius, excavated in 1952, during the digging of the DTD canal near Novi Bečej. The botanical collection consists of the herbarium material of the former Higher Pedagogical School from Zrenjanin, herbarium of M. Gajić – former professor of the same school, herbarium of the Arandjelovac Forestry Administration, seed and herbarium of the Agricultural Cooperative “Agraria” from Novi Sad, herbarium of medical plants and agricultural crops. The zoological collection consists of collections of insects, amphibians, fish, reptiles, birds and their eggs, mammals and hunting trophies. The collection of liquid preparations of the Natural History Department of the National Museum of Zrenjanin was taken over from the Higher Pedagogical School in Zrenjanin. The material in the bottles, which was collected on professional excursions around the Adriatic Sea, consists of botanical and zoological specimens (plankton, corals, sponges, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals). The collection of studies consists of biological studies, models and models, drawings and pictures, slides, films, micro preparations and microscopes. The photo library consists of photo-negatives, photo-positives, slides and photographs.

Contact:

Nataša Knežević, senior curator
Natural history department
natasa.knezevic@rocketmail.com