Collections in storage

The museum deposits preserve a wealth of non-displayed naturalistic assets from the province of Sondrio and the surrounding areas. Each sample or specimen has its own relevance as is associated to important data (when it was collected, where and by whom) and provides researchers with material for studies on charateristics of a physical, distributional, ecological and genetic nature. Thanks to these collections, the Lombardy Region has recognized the museum of Morbegno as a “raccolta museale” or "museum collection".

Upon request, scholars and enthusiasts, can access the deposits and collections of minerals (1,400 specimens, belonging to 197 species, more than half from the Valmalenco area); fossils, including important specimens of the Cassinisia orobica, a conifer that lived about 250 million years ago. The deposits contain a herbarium (4,800 sheets of dried higher plants and 1,000 samples of moss and lichen, all collected in the province of Sondrio), insects (over 35,000 specimens coming exclusively from Valtellina, Valchiavenna and some neighbouring areas), amphibians and reptiles (about 250 specimens, all preserved in alcohol), birds (almost 1,000 specimens belonging to 217 species, of which part naturalized, i.e. prepared in order to take on a natural appearance, and the others preserved in leather) and mammals (over 1,300 of 60 species naturalized or in skin). There are numerous small mammals belonging to the order of the erinaceomorphs (hedgehogs, moles and shrews), most of which are preserved in alcohol.

The museum also preserves osteological finds (skulls, bones ...) of vertebrates, some of which are mounted.