The venue of the Museum of Natural Sciences is a neo-classicist building erected between 1890 and 1893. The building first hosted the Seklar Museum of Crafts, and later the Mureș County Museum's history and archaeology section. The first collection of “natural history” of Tîrgu-Mureș dates from the 1920s, when Aurel Filimon established a museum which included palaeontologic, mineralogical, botanic and zoological materials along with archaeological and ethnographic items. He exchanged items with numerous collectors from abroad and thus managed to collect exotic insects and butterflies of rare beauty. In 1934 he arranged an exhibition based on his collections in the lecture hall of the Palace of Culture. In 1939, before the break out of the Second World War, Filimon was planning to set up a museum of natural sciences based on his 10,000 piece collection. Due to the political situation, he was forced to flee to Bucharest and was not able to accomplish his project. The current permanent exhibition was opened to the public in 1988 and is a selection of the total 70,000 items kept in special conditions in the museum's storage area. It is organized by sections: minerals and rocks, palaeontology, flora and fauna of the Mures County, environmental protection, medicinal plants and rare birds. The exhibition is based on ecological principles and its arrangement varies based on the type of the exhibits. One can see food chains and networks, displays of mine minerals or wood essences, animal fossils, types and species of insects etc. There are also explanatory panels, such as the one depicting the migration of birds. The museum has a large diorama including four natural ecosystems represented in the four seasons: the field lake with its specific birds, an area of the Field of Transylvania, a deciduous forest and a coniferous one. The most spectacular exhibit is the trophy of Carpathian stag, one of the most beautiful in the world.

Bibliography:

Aurelia Veronica Filimon, Consacrare și destin în vol. Aurel Filimon – consacrare și destin,  volum editat de Biblioteca Județeană Mureș și Fundația Culturală "Vasile Netea", Tîrgu-Mureș, 2001, pp. 20-40.