Collections of felids (Felidae) in natural history museums of Ukraine and their importance in knowledge dissemination on nature

The study is devoted to the analysis of collections of the felid family, which are housed in natural history museums of Ukraine under different jurisdictions (two academic and eight university). The basics of the modern taxonomy of felids are considered with the vernacular names of tribes, genera and their type species, which is important for the unification of exhibition and catalogue information in various museum collections. For each of the considered museums, four blocks of data are presented: a general summary for the collection (including information about the history, volume, famous collectors and taxidermists, and key publications), presentation of particularly valuable or unique specimens (depending on the volume of the collection, 3 to 5 such specimens), and description of the exhibition and scientific collections. There is a certain specificity of museums, which is why there are collections with a minimal representation of felids in the exhibition or, conversely, in the scientific collections. The most complete felid collections (in terms of the number of specimens) are housed in the Museum of Nature of Kharkiv University (a total of 109 specimens), in the National Museum of Natural History (152 specimens), and in the Zoological Museum of Odesa University (66 specimens); in other collections the amount of material is much smaller (7–36 specimens). The total volume of collections of this family reaches 460 specimens of 21 species of 12 genera (out of 14 living). The examples of materials important for the dissemination of knowledge about this group are given, from folklore to important and interesting scientific facts for the general public. For all species, there is an organised catalogue, classified by tribe, genus, and species (all alphabetically), in which key information about the available specimens is given for each museum. Such information for each species is arranged according to the scheme ‘museum, location, number of samples, collection numbers and types of specimens, date, and collector or preparator.’ The present study is the first such generalisation of zoological collections of Ukraine, the experience of which can be extended to other groups of animals. The development of this study showed a high interest of colleagues in such generalisations, which clearly activate the attention of museum workers, researchers of variability and diversity, potential museum visitors and society to the topic of the selected focus groups and activation of exhibiting and research work in relation to those groups.