The Egg Collection

The egg collection of the Zoological Museum is one of the largest in the world by number of species presented. At the end of 1990 there were 3 182 species and 5100 subspecies. About one third of the earth's 10 000 species of birds is represented. The collection comprise about 32 000 groups.

The collection more than doubled when Dr. H.C. Ragnar Kreuger donated his world-wide collection to the University of Helsinki in 1962. This collection, known as Museum Oologicum R. Kreuger, is located at the Munkkiniemi, and contains 55% of the Zoological museum's egg clutches. It is not open to the public. The rest of the items are in the main building on the fourth floor of the Zoological Museum, Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 13. Only a few of the clutches are on display to public here because the colors of the egg-shells tend to fade when exposed to light.

Museum Oologicum R. Kreuger

Raganar Kreuger (1897-1997) began collecting eggs in the 1910's, as was the habit of schoolboys in those days. In 1917 he bought the first one in a long fothcoming series. The following year he bought three more and continued collecting eggs for more than half a century. Kreuger acquired collections from different corners of the globe - Argentina, Venezuela, and elsewhere in South America, the West Indies, Tibet, Australia, the Salomon Islands, Gambia, the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and other places in Africa as well as from Europe. Even after donating his collection to the university, Kreuger continued enhancing it through purchases and exchanges. The great number of species and subspecies represented in the egg collection of the University of Helsinki is due chiefly to Kreuger's goal to make the collection as taxonomically complete as possible. All modern orders are represented.

From the very start Kreuger recruited the artist and taxidermist John Grönvall (1895-1979) to take care of the collections, as he was one of the most prominent repairers of broken eggs in the world. The job requires artistic skills and extraordinary patience. Partly because of Kreuger, Grönvall's reputation spread even further among collectors, and orders for his work came from all over the world.

Extinct and threatened species

Birdlife International published a report on all threatened and recently extinct bird species worldwide in 1994. Within the first 41 families, there are 302 of them - from the Cassowary to the auks. On the basis of a preliminary investigation of the above mentioned species, 71 are represented in Museum Oologicum R. Kreuger. Out of all the extinct species represented in the collection, special attention might be drawn to the eggs of the Elephant bird Aepyornis titan (pictured in the foreground), and those of the wingless Great auk. As awareness of many threatened bird species spread, the museum ceased all exchanges with private collectors, and has abided by this principle since the beginning of the 1970s.

Eggs of extinct, threathened or otherwise rare species in Kreuger's collection. The large egg on the foreground belongs to the now extinct Elephant bird Aepyornis titan.

Lately, contributions to the collections have come only through donations. Between 1975 ad 1995 the museum received 21 small collections from individuals and schools all over Finland, as well as Jarl Carpelan's (1897-1954) collection representing 1000 families, in 1998.

Egg collections in research and environmental monitoring.

In 1960 the first part of Max Schönwetter's handbook "Handbuch der Oologie" was published. After Schönwetter's death, his work was carried on by Prof. Wilhelm Meise, who produced 47 parts between 1960 and 1992. The work consists of 3666 pages and presents in detail all species and subspecies whose eggs are known. According to Meise, there are 30 000 - 35 000 sub-species of birds, and the eggs of only half of these are known to science. In many cases, the measurements given in the handbook and the colour photographs are from specimens in the Kreuger collection.

Egg collections have proved to be useful in a variety of ways. The material has been used in research of the geographical variability of species and in the study of micro evolution. Because egg collections represent long time-series, they have been invaluable in determining at what point in time various pollutants began to accumulate in food-chains. Surveys have annually been carried out of several birds of prey populations in Finland since the beginning of the 1970s. At the same time, unhatched eggs and egg-shells have been collected, the contents of unhatched eggs being frozen to create a sort of "environmental data bank".