The museum possesses tens of thousands of invertebrate fossils. More than half of these were collected in North-East Italy, whilst others come from fossiliferous sites elsewhere in Italy, Europe and beyond.
These finds are of fundamental use in reconstructing the history of life on Earth and the geological and climatic evolution of our planet over the last 500 million years.
Certain groups of invertebrate fossils — such as trilobites and ammonites — are also extremely helpful in establishing the age of the sedimentary rocks that contain them.
One of the strengths of this collection is that it illustrates the many different types of fossilisation.
The exceptional preservation of some items is truly remarkable: the delicate wings of a dragonfly that lived 150 million years ago, a squid in which the ink sac can still be seen, and many more besides.
