The Genetic Bank of the Institute of Vertebrate Biology (IVB Genetic Bank) focusses on the collection of wild vertebrate samples, with most samples originating from specific research projects, though samples from occasional animal cadavers are also provided by IVB employees or external sample providers, such as animal rescue stations or natural history museums. Thus, material from Central European fauna as well as from other countries of the world is collected. The oldest samples in the IVB Genetic Bank come from the collections of Prof. Jan Zima, who began collecting in the early 1990s. Genetic Bank samples (typically a piece of tissue in 96% ethanol) are stored in deep freezers (-80 °C) at the Studenec research facility or in the NAGB sample repository at the Mohelský Mill field station. The IVB Genetic bank works in partnership with the IVB Collection of vertebrate voucher specimens and other relevant collections so that it can maintain records on the location of all stored material from a particular individual (e.g. in cases where a genetic sample from an animal used to create a taxidermy mount in a natural history museum is stored in the bank). The IVB Genetic Bank is registered under the Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl; code IVB) and is also a member of the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN), an international network of non-human genetic repositories.