Revisiting the “Ralum Project”: Molluscs collected by Friedrich Dahl in 1896-1897 for the Museum of Natural History Berlin

Abstract

While the scientific significance of museum collections has gained increasing attention in recent years, their historical contextualisation has often been neglected. Even historical collections of major significance have remained largely unexplored. Even for the material collected by eminent scientific voyageurs such as e.g. Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace or Alexander von Humboldt a complete overview is missing, let alone an inventory of the still existing material. Here, we present an account on Friedrich Dahl's research expedition to Ralum (German New Guinea) in the years 1896 to 1897 from which originate many important specimens in the natural history museum in Berlin. Dahl collected several hundreds of specimens of molluscs, birds, and reptiles and thus greatly extended the representation of the tropical fauna within the museum collection. However, in contrast to other departments, Dahl's contribution to the malacological collection has only been inventorized fragmentarily. We here identify those molluscs from Ralum that have been neglected so far and thus determine the complete amount of Dahl's malacological alcohol collection. Moreover, we outline the circumstances of this expedition and the further utilization of his specimens in subsequent museum's research. We thus integrate the Ralum project into its historical context that reveals not only its relevance for scientists and science in the past but also its significance for the present-day museum in Berlin. (© 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)