The historical ornithological collection of the Museum of Zoology of Torino University, now hosted at the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali di Torino, Italy (MRSN), includes more than 21,000 bird specimens and 500 complete skeletons representing c.6,000 taxa. The IUCN Red List of threatened species lists 256 bird species as either extinct or endangered (‘E&E’) from throughout the world. To provide a list of those species that should receive special care, a well-established methodology was applied to produce a list of 12 extinct and 36 endangered species held in the MRSN collection. Some of them, particularly those from New Zealand, although it is unclear where they were acquired, are remarkable for being amongst the first bird specimens to have arrived in European museums.