St. Petersburg's Zoological Museum is the biggest museum of that type in Russia. Its history begins from the zoological department of the Kunstkammer founded in 1728. It became an independent museum in 1832. Since 1896, the museum has been in the building of the former Southern Warehouse on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island (1826-1832, designed by Giovanni Lucini). In 1931, the Zoological Research Institute, a research institute of the Academy of Sciences, was founded at the museum. At present, the museum is a part of this research institute. Major Russian experts in natural history, such as Pyotr Pallas, Nikolai Przhevalsky, Pyotr Kozlov and Nikolai Miklukho-Maklai, contributed to the formation of the museum collections.

The museum collections show the fauna of all the Earth. The original collections were added to with the exhibits brought from the expeditions of famous Russian travelers. At present, the collections of the museum show more than 40 thousand animals, while the research collections of the Zoological Institute include about 15 million of samples of fauna.

All types of animals can be seen in the museum: invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, etc. The collections of birds and mammals are especially rich. Many rare and extinct species are demonstrated here. Of special interest are the skeleton and the model of the mammoth of Berezov found in 1799, the well-preserved little mammoth found in Magadan region in 1979, the skeletons of a whale and an extinct "southern elephant", stuffed figures of a wild camel, a snow panther and a giant "dragon" from Comodo Island. A collection of animals with various defects was transferred to the Zoological Museum from the Kunstkammer.

The diorama technique was widely used in the display of the exhibits, so one can see animals in their natural environment. These exhibits are excellent examples of the art of sculptural taxidermy and painting.

The museum collections tend to increase. New research expeditions of the Zoological Institute resulted in the unique display "Fauna of Black Volcanoes" showing animals who live at underwater volcanoes, deep in the sea.