KU Leuven, Zoology Museum, Bird collection (Aves)

The ornithological collection contains of over 1.990 mounted birds in addition to a large collection of bird clutches. It includes a large donation by the Pas-Wegner family to the Biology Department of KU Leuven in 2020 consisting of 1.324 mounted birds collected by Frans Pas (1935-2020) and his father Jan Pas (1905-1988). Father and son mostly collected specimens in the Campine area across the Dutch-Belgian border, but birds from other areas in Europe (incl.

Greenland) are present as well. Their collection furthermore contains a total of over 140 specimens purchased from Danish taxidermists Jørgen Kofoed, Thorkil Duch and Christian Aboe Sørensen, as well as from the German company A. Schlüter KG. In addition to the mounted birds collected by Frans and Jan Pas, the ornithological collection of the Zoology Museum contains around 670 mounted birds dating back to the 19th century and originating from more exotic locations, including Java and South America.

Highlights of the ornithological collection include mounted specimens of the extinct Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) and Blue-grey Macaw (Anodorhynchus glaucus), alongside the almost complete set of European birds from the Pas collection. Please note that the current version of this GBIF dataset only contains the mounted birds of the Pas collection.