The Fish collection was first studied by Decio Vinciguerra. When Vinciguerra moved to Rome, for a decade Alberto Perugia took charge of the reorganisation and cataloguing of all the specimens, publishing about fifteen works. Vinciguerra then resumed his activity at the Museum from 1921, publishing a total of 40 works. The fishes gathered in Uganda by Enrico Bayon were instead illustrated by George Albert Boulenger. In the 1940s, Delfa Guiglia oversaw the organisation of the collection, until the arrival of Enrico Tortonese, who devoted some fifty publications to fishes and used the museum’s collection as a base for the three volumes of the “Fauna d’Italia” dedicated to fish. The freshwater fishes of Liguria were studied by Gianna Arbocco, who later worked on the reorganisation and management of the collection.

The collection can be estimated at a total of over 100,000 specimens, with over 2,000 species and nearly 200 types.