Data mobilisation at the Fund of invertebrates of the State Museum of Natural History of the NAS of Ukraine

The described dataset contains occurrence records of invertebrate specimens deposited at the State Museum of Natural History of the NAS of Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine (SMNH NASU). It combines diverse taxonomic groups, mostly belonging to the class Insecta of the phylum Arthropoda, that were selected as prioritized for digitisation in war conditions. Selected specimens were ascertained as those being the most vulnerable to hostilities and requiring virtual preservation. Such virtual preservation is essential in the war realities as collection can be lost or damaged at any moment, resulting in a significant retrospective biodiversity data gap. At the same time, collection virtualization and its deposition on the internet grant remote access to scientists who cannot visit it in person due to war. Moreover, we believe that the mobilisation of the data from the Ukrainian collections and their publication online are essential for the integration of Ukrainian research facilities into a global scientific biodiversity pool. 3,660 occurrence records mobilized in 2023-2024 from the collection of invertebrates of the SMNH NASU, were published. This dynamic dataset will continually be supplied by new records during further digitisation work.