Immediately after the Croatian Parliament passed a decision on the establishment of the National Museum back in 1836, Mijat Sabljar, a retired major and later a versatile museum expert, donated to the Museum a rich collection of ores and bivalves. His collection represents the foundation of today’s extensive and diverse geological and paleontological holdings of the Croatian Natural History Museum.

Following the example of Mijat Sabljar, who even at that time proposed the creation of natural history collections throughout the entire Croatia and Slavonia, which is why he is considered “the originator of museum thinking in Croatia”, his many contemporaries of various profiles also collected fossils and rocks from the areas near Zagreb, Slavonia, Srijem, and other sites. Often, due to political and other reasons, the collected samples ended up in more well-known museums, for example in Vienna and Budapest. However, since at that time, the Illyrian Revival was starting to flare up, and Croatian patriotism had a significant place in it, due to that, and also encouraged by monetary redemption, a significant part of the collected material remained in the Museum of that time. Hence, the geological and paleontological collections were expanded and enriched. “Museum commissioners” were even appointed in some places. They voluntarily and with great effort began to collect and purchase fossils and other natural objects for the Museum.

An unavoidable name, related to the very beginnings of the entire museum activity and to the important contributions made in the collection and identification of fossils, ores, and rocks, is the name of the Illyrian Ljudevit Farkaš Vukotinović. The geological segment of Vukotinović’s natural history work was continued by Spiridion Brusina, who in 1868 became the first “pristav”, i.e. the curator of natural history collections. He moved the natural history collections from the National Home Palace in Opatička Street 18 to the "public building, former old theatre" at Demetrova Street 1.

The name Spiridiona Brusina is particularly associated with a significant paleomalacological collection which contains more than 15,000 specimens of mostly brackish-water and freshwater bivalves and snails of Neogene age from various localities. Brusina collected and processed this extensive and significant collection for almost four decades, and the results of this work are not only the processed collections, but also the monographs that are widely known in paleontological circles: Fossile Binen-Molusken aus Dalmatien, Kroatien und Slavonien nebst einem Anhange; Gragja za neogensku malakološku faunu Dalmacije, Hrvatske i Slavonije uz neke vrste iz Bosne, Hercegovine i Srbiji and Iconographia Molluscorum fosillum in tellure tertiaria Hungariae, Croatiae, Slavoniae, Dalmatiae, Bosniae, Herzegovinae, Serbiae et Bulgariae inventorum.

Due to Brusina’s efforts, Gjuro Pilar, the first professional geologist, a man of European education and culture, took over the position of the curator of the geological and mineralogical collection in 1970. After returning from his studies in Brussels, Pilar acquired the necessary literature, aids, and instruments for the needs of geological scientific research and university teaching, and he scientifically processed the basic geological holdings of today’s Croatian Natural History Museum. Moreover, he acquired valuable comparative collections of fossils from abroad and he created the first permanent geological display. He was the first to scientifically process a geological museum collection, published in 1873 in the work Trećegorje i podloga mu u Glinskom pokuplju.

The collection of fossil flora from the Sarmatian deposits around Zagreb, which was also collected and studied by Gjuro Pilar, testifies that the object of interest and research of the naturalists and museum experts of the time were not only the remains of the fauna, but also of the rich and varied flora. The results of the research on fossil flora were presented in the comprehensive monograph titled Flora fossilis Susedana from 1883.

In 1880, after studying in Zürich, Vienna, and Tübingen, Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger became the so-called pristav, i.e. curator of geology and palaeontology of the National Museum. The world-renowned geologist, palaeontologist and paleoanthropologist gained his reputation at the end of the nineteenth century, when he discovered and announced to the European and global scientific public the sensational discovery of the remains of Neanderthals from Krapina. Even though Gorjanović-Kramberger is best known for the discovery of the Krapina Neanderthals, we must not ignore other segments of geological-paleontological materials that he collected and processed during his many years of dedicated work at the Museum, for example molluscs from the Neogene deposits of northern Croatia, Pleistocene mammals, Cretaceous and Miocene fish, and rock samples that represent the stratigraphy of Croatia. It should certainly be mentioned that Brusina and Gorjanović-Kramberger set the largest number of type species (holotypes) that are preserved in a separate, extremely significant and valuable collection of holotypes.

After the death of Gjuro Pilar in 1893, the Department of Mineralogy and Geology of the National Museum was divided into the Department of Geology and Palaeontology and the Department of Mineralogy and Petrography, and the scientific and professional work in the field of geology and palaeontology was led by Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger. Only in 1903, due to the increase in holdings, Ferdo Koch started working as a curator, and a few years after Koch, two more curators started working at the Museum: Marijan Salopek and Josip Poljak. Thus, the Museum, as well as the Department of Geology associated with it at the University, become the foundations of the future Croatian geological service.

During his many years of museum work, Marijan Salopek researched Triassic and Jurassic deposits of different localities. In the process he found, processed, and determined numerous fauna species, especially cephalopods, and he also formed valuable collections of ammonites.

Josip Poljak left a mark on the Museum of that time with his fifty years of work, and at the same time, he entrusted the Museum of today. In addition to enriching its holdings, his contribution to the Museum in general was immeasurably vast. A large part of the inventory book of geological and paleontological material was written in his calligraphic handwriting, and as a document of the time, it is important to mention the numerous glass plates on which important professional and historical data were recorded. Josip Poljak enriched the Museum’s activities in every way, and due to his efforts, new experts were employed: Ivan Crnolatac, Milan Herak, and Ante Milan.

We must not forget the curators of the recent period either, because their contribution to the enrichment, care, and professional and scientific work on the geological-paleontological holdings was extremely important. However, as the results of their work are still present and form part of the Museum’s activities today, we will not mention them by name on this occasion.

Major changes in the Museum took place in the 1960s, when the general progress of the City of Zagreb, and geology as a science, as well as the demands of visitors, required the modernization of the museum display. The study collections and the holdings for permanent display were chosen. All curators of the then Museum of Geology and Palaeontology (Ivan Crnolatac, Ante Milan, Melita Pavlovsky, and Krešimir Sakač) worked on the new display. The new organization of the Museum enabled more favourable working conditions for both local and foreign scientists. Hence, the visits and stays of foreign experts in the Museum became more and more frequent. Cooperation with schools and faculties, as well as with natural history and native museums in other places in Croatia, was also being strengthened.

An important year in the history of our Department is certainly 1986, when the Museum of Geology and Palaeontology was merged with the Museum of Zoology and the Museum of Mineralogy and Petrography into a unique Croatian Natural History Museum.