Slug(-gish) science, or an annotated catalogue of the types of tropical vaginulid and agriolimacid pulmonates (Mollusca, Gastropoda), described by Heinrich Simroth (1851-1917), in the Natural History Museum Berlin

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, the teacher of natural history and professor of zoology in Leipzig Heinrich Simroth (1851–1917) was one of the best known German malacologists. In addition to his encyclopaedic work and important review on molluscs and gastropods in particular, Simroth made his name as an expert of air-breathing terrestrial, hermaphrodite slugs, or pulmonate land snails without shell. Being a life-long passion for him Simroth described a plethora of new taxa, but never established his own reference collection. Contrary to recent assumptions, though, that there is no Simroth collection, a total of 43 of his slug types, in particular of tropical vaginulids from South America (10), Africa (10) and SE Asia (6), as well as agriolimacids from Ethiopia and the Caucasus (14 þ 1) as well as palearctic limacids (2), were found to be