An annotated catalogue of the sea spiders (Pycnogonida, Pantopoda) held in the Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Abstract

The entire collection of sea spiders (Arthropoda: Pycnogonida) – including types – in the Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin is documented. In addition to locality and collector details, all names have been corrected to their current form and familial affinities. Of the 332 lots which should be present according to our catalogue and the literature, 323 could be traced. These represent a total of 120 species names. Excluding types of junior synonyms, etc., 111 currently valid species in ten families are present. As well as material from the coast of Germany, particularly significant collections come from the North Atlantic through to boreal-arctic regions, the Gulf of Naples, Japan, Namibia and South Africa, the southern Indian Ocean (especially around Kerguelen) and Antarctica. Major German and Danish collecting trips which have contributed to the Berlin collection include the Gazelle-Expedition (1874–76), the Dijmphna-Expedition (1883), the Ingolf-Expedition (1895–96), the Deutsche Expedition in das nördliche Eismeer (1898), the Deutsche Tiefsee-Expedition (1898–99), the Deutsche Südpolar-Expedition (1901–1903) and more recently the 1996 Polarstern Expedition. Type series of 57 species are confirmed present (48 valid names; 9 junior synonyms), with unequivocal primary types from R. Böhm, Karl Möbius, Thomas Vere Hodgson, Herman Helfer, Frederick Meinert and Vladimir Schimkewitsch, and suspected syntypes from Hans Jacob Hansen, Anton Dohrn and Jan Cornelis Christiaan Loman. A further four Helfer type series should be in Berlin, but at least two of them were never deposited here and were probably destroyed; another is very badly damaged and should be treated as effectively lost. (© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)