A review of collection samples of mammals received from the territory of Belarus (within its modern borders) and stored in natural museums of Ukraine is given. Information on the materials of 5 museums is summarized – Dybowski Zoological Museum at Lviv National University (ZMD), Zoological Museum of Kyiv National University (ZMKU), Museum of Nature at the Kharkiv University (MNKU), State Natural History Museum of NASU (Lviv, SNHM) and National Museum of Natural History of NAS of Ukraine (Kyiv, NMNH). Within the latter, two (out of three available) collections were studied – the collections of the Department of Zoology (NNPM-z) and the Department of Museology (NNPM-m). Samples from Belarus were found in the collections of ZMD (5 specimens), SMNH (2 sp.), NMNH-z (68 sp.), NMNH-p (36 sp.), NMNH-m (7 sp.), MNKU (3 sp.). In total, there are 121 specimens of 13 mammal species in the collections. The number of samples is dominated by rodents, in particular Spermophilus suslicus (61 sp.), Sus scrofa (31 sp.) and Sylvaemus tauricus (7 sp.). Ancient specimens predominate (1885–1915), among which specimens from the collection of O. Brauner (NNPM) dominate. Certain groups of mammals appear in collections only in the last period of accumulation of collections, in particular murine rodents (collections of the 1990s). The largest number of samples was collected in the southern and western regions of Belarus within the Brest, Minsk, Grodno and Gomel oblasts. The most diverse are the collections from the vicinities of Mozyr in the Gomel oblast, mostly samples from the Brauner's collections of 1900–1915, which are now stored in the NNPM. The oldest are the samples of the black rat (Rattus rattus) from the collections of Benedykt Dybowski in 1885 in the family estates of Vojnov and Niankov of the Novogrudok district of the Grodno oblast. The most valuable is a sample of 61 skulls of ground squirrels Spermophilus odessanus (suslicus s. lato), collected during 1947–1954 in different districts of Brest, Grodno and Minsk oblasts. The series Sylvaemus tauricus from Central Polissia (7 sp.), collected in the 1990-1995 and transferred to the NNPM, is also significant.
Read full abstract