Museum Of Natural History In Berlin Research Articles

2022 Joint Barringer Medal for Kai Wünnemann and Gareth S. Collins

2022 Joint Barringer Medal for Kai Wünnemann and Gareth S. Collins

Equine Strongylidae and other parasitic nematodes described by Arthur Looss during 1895–1911 in the collections of the Swedish Museum of Natural History

Prof. Arthur Looss (1861-1923) was a prolific German parasitologist, who, among other things, authored descriptions of 22 new species of nematodes and 115 new species of trematodes. After his death, his collection (including type material) was split between several institutions: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington (USA), Natural History Museum in Berlin and the Natural History Museum in Leipzig (Germany), Gothenburg Museum of Natural History and Swedish Museum of Natural History (Sweden). Here we revise all type specimens of nematodes from the A. Looss collection that are currently preserved in the Swedish Museum of Natural History (Strongylus subtilis, Sclerostomum edentatum, S. vulgare, Cyathostomum labratum, C. coronatum, C. bicoronatum, C. calicatum, C. alveatum, C. catinatum, C. nassatum, C. radiatum, C. elongatum, C. auriculatum, Triodontus minor, T. serratus, C. labiatum and Uncinaria polaris), designate and describe lectotypes wherever deemed necessary and provide catalogue access numbers to all type materials. We also revise all notes and drawings associated with new species that A. Looss described and provide previously unpublished pencilled sketches and ink print-ready drawings of some of these species (Strongylus subtilis, Cyathostomum poculatum, C. radiatum, C. elongatum, C. calicatum, C. auriculatum, Triodontus serratus, Trichostrongylus vitrinus and possibly Necator africanus).

2018 Barringer Medal for Thomas Kenkmann

2018 Barringer Medal for Thomas Kenkmann

Obituary for a brilliant materials scientist—on Klaus Thoma's death

On June 9, 2018, Prof. Dr. Klaus Thoma passed away at the age of 68 after a pulmonary embolism. His sudden death leaves a huge void for us. Until his retirement in 2014, Klaus Thoma was the director of the Fraunhofer-Institute for High-Speed Dynamics, Ernst-Mach-Institute (EMI) in Germany. He characteristically shaped EMI over almost 20 years. Klaus Thoma was an internationally renowned scientist, expert in experimental and computational dynamic materials research, and mentor and promoter for generations of scientists. He was a visionary leader, indefatigably identifying and shaping new topics in materials research and associated applications. He inspired countless people from inside and outside the institute with his passionate way of tackling scientific problems and technological challenges. At the time when Klaus Thoma became director of the Ernst-Mach-Institute in 1996, EMI was mainly known for its experimental capabilities in dynamic materials research and specifically so for defense applications. At EMI, large and unique test facilities were already established for the investigation of the strain-rate-dependent mechanical behavior of materials and shock wave physics. Having a profound international expertise in the development and application of wave propagation codes, Klaus Thoma early on perceived the strategic opportunity of integrating those experiments with the upcoming numerical simulation methodologies for transient processes. He strongly expanded the experimental material testing capabilities of EMI for various fields of applications and laid the foundation for new experimental and numerical approaches in geoscientific dynamic material research and impact cratering research. For the characterization of the shock behavior of materials at extreme conditions flyer plate test facilities are used. This technique is ideally suited to investigate shock metamorphism in minerals and rocks. Recognizing the significance of this technique for crater research, Dieter Stöffler and co-workers started to cooperate with EMI in the early 1970s in the field of experimental investigation of shock behavior of rock-forming minerals such as quartz, feldspar, or olivine. EMI's explosively driven flyer plate method allowed the recovery of the specimen, and led to development of the widely used scheme of progressive shock metamorphism of minerals. Based on a long-lasting cooperation with researchers from the Museum of Natural History Berlin, Klaus Thoma soon recognized that by combining the strengths of EMI in the field of experimental impact testing capabilities with the expertise of cratering research in rocks, a new and comprehensive joint research topic could be initiated, dedicated to the investigation of natural crater formation at the laboratory scale. With EMI internal research funds, Klaus Thoma performed two pilot impact tests on large sandstone blocks on EMI's extra-large two-stage light gas gun during a joint pilot test phase. This prefeasibility study was key for the foundation of the DFG-funded research unit MEMIN—Multidisciplinary Experimental and Modeling Impact crater research network—in 2009, with Thomas Kenkmann as speaker and Klaus Thoma as well as Alex Deutsch as co-speakers. The two-stage light gas guns of EMI played a pivotal role for cratering research within MEMIN, since they allowed reaching previously not achieved crater dimensions at laboratory scales. The purpose of MEMIN was to comprehensively quantify impact processes in various lithologies under lab conditions. After Thomas Kenkmann became Chair of Geology at the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources at Albert-Ludwigs-University (ALU) of Freiburg in 2010, the close cooperation between ALU and EMI further fertilized crater research: The German Research Foundation (DFG) subsequently also funded MEMIN Phase II, some results of which are published in the August 2018 special issue of MAPS. Klaus Thoma was a brilliant scientist and a gifted research manager. For us, having known and interacted with Klaus Thoma so closely was a great privilege. His visionary thinking, commitment, and persistence made MEMIN possible. This is his heritage in geosciences!

Barilius neglectus STIELER, 1907 ein Seniorsynonym von Hemigrammocypris rasborella FOWLER, 1910 (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae)

The taxon Barilius neglectus Stieler, 1907 was founded on specimens who were imported as aquarium fishes by pet trade from Japan. The fish was hold and breed in captivity by German hobbyists at the beginning of the last century and died off in captivity because of the later imported more coloured species. Nevertheless, there are a lot of quotations of this species in the benchmarks of the hobbyists. But the species name is not to find in the ichthyological literature, especially also in the Japanese literature. During a re-investigation of the syntypes of this species hold in the Museum of Natural History Berlin, it was shown that Barilius neglectus Stieler, 1907 is a senior synonym of Hemigrammocypris rasborella Fowler, 1910. According to these investigations the correct name of this fish is Hemigrammocypris neglectus (Stieler, 1907).

Oral Histories in Meteoritics and Planetary Science-XXIII: Dieter Stöffler

In this interview, Dieter Stöffler (Fig. 1) describes how his interest in meteorites and impact craters dates from his Ph.D. studies at the University of Tübingen when it was learned that the Ries crater was formed by impact. A paper by Dieter's advisor, Wolf von Engelhardt, also triggered an interest in meteorites. After graduation, Dieter helped to establish a laboratory for high pressure mineralogy and he examined rocks from the Ries crater, which led to the concept of progressive shock metamorphism. The group also worked on newly returned Apollo samples and guided astronauts over the crater. A year at the NASA Ames Research Center taught Dieter about experimental impact research with a light-gas gun. After a few more years at Tübingen, Dieter obtained a professorship at the University of Münster where he created the Institute of Planetology, got involved in planning space missions including comet sample return, and continued high pressure mineralogy in collaboration with colleagues in Freiburg. Through several decades of research, Dieter and colleagues have documented the effects of shock on all the major rock-forming minerals and devised widely accepted schemes for the classification of shocked rocks. After the unification of Germany, Dieter became Director of the Natural History Museum in Berlin, during which he made much progress rebuilding the laboratories and the collections. Dieter also helped to create a museum and research center in the Ries crater. He received the Barringer Award of the Meteoritical Society in 1994 and several prestigious awards in Germany.

“Give me a museum and I will fill it”. The first German Tropical Research Station at Ralum, Bismarck Archipelago, 1896-1897, in context of collecting for the Museum of Natural History Berlin

The scientific significance of museum collections gained increasing attention recently, as it is realised that natural history objects stored in the respective museums worldwide for over two hundred years are of great relevance to modern science in several respects. We here reconstruct the history of and contextualize such a collection that dates back to the time of German colonialism and was compilated in the course of a remarkable project at Ralum in the western South Pacific during 1896 to 1897. Ralum was a research station in the Bismarck Archipelago, initiated by Anton Dohrn, the founder and director of the Zoological Station in Naples, Italy, together with Richard Parkinson, a plantation owner and trader in the German colony in the Bismarck Archipelago. The concept of a tropical research station as part of a network of worldwide research stations was a vision ahead of its time. In order to find a suitable scientist working at Ralum Dohrn re-established contact to an old acquaintance, Karl August Möbius, who meanwhile had become director of the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. Möbius suggested his former graduate student Friedrich Dahl, then professor of zoology in Kiel, and later curator in Berlin. During his one year stay at Ralum, Dahl had a regular correspondence with Möbius that is still kept, albeit until now disregarded, in the archives of the Berlin museum. We here transcribe and fully present this correspondence which vividly shows what collecting and research was like at the end of the 19th century in a remote tropical environment. Dahl made extensive observations on the fauna and flora, describing in detail also the ecology of the Bismarck Archipelago. Möbius in return gave Dahl instructions how to collect species in order to “fill the museum”. Dahl accomplished this quite successfully as his many specimens from Ralum today form part of the rich collections in the museum. Unfortunately, Dahl was not only the first but also the only scientist ever working at Ralum, as the project of establishing a tropical research station eventually failed due to dissensions between the influential zoologists Dohrn and Möbius. (© 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Franz Hilgendorf's dissertation ”︁Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Süßwasserkalks von Steinheim” from 1863: Transcription and description of the first Darwinian interpretation of transmutation

Franz Martin Hilgendorf (1839–1904), assistant and later curator at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, is mainly known for his palaeontological studies about Miocene planorbids of the Steinheim Basin, Southern Germany, a topic on which he already wrote his dissertation in 1863. After having been introduced to the geology and in particular stratigraphy of Steinheim in summer 1862 by his teacher Friedrich August Quenstedt, who later did not follow his interpretations, though, Hilgendorf traveled to Steinheim repeatedly. Based on these studies he published between 1866 to 1901 several papers on transformation series, or Formenreihen, of the freshwater gastropod “Planorbis multiformis ” (today assigned with several species to the genus Gyraulus), which reflect a scientific controversy that lasted for another century. Following earlier hints as to its existence, we re-discovered Hilgendorf’s original, handwritten dissertation of 42 pages in the archives of the Berlin Natural History Museum (Historische Arbeitsstelle), together with a rich literary bequest that has not been studied yet. Discussing some of its implications, we here present for the first time a complete transcription of Hilgendorf’s German text that had never been published before, showing that he at that very early stage explicitly contextualized his Steinheim findings with Darwin’s new theory of evolution, i.e. phylogenetical relationships of descendants through time. In addition, we report on and depict Hilgendorf’s curious arrangements on five cardboards, comprising the shells of planorbids as transformation series with transition of taxa, plus one card revealing his first phylogenetic tree that is found among his collection of material from Steinheim in the Palaeontological Collection of the Berlin Natural History Museum. With these Steinheim snails Hilgendorf not only described one of the first evolutionary transformations illustrating both ana- and cladogenesis, but created the first phylogenetic reconstruction on the basis of existing fossil evidence.

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

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)

The Museum Imagination

As a large part of our communication processes are digitally mediated and the information we exchange in these processes is delivered in binary numeric form, the experience of tangible materiality becomes more and more rare. With the example of the collection of the Natural History Museum in Berlin we are tracing a parallel development towards a gradual virtualization of the material object in the arts and in the sciences. The paper describes the conceptual background and design decisions that were made to reflect on the status of the object in the Cine-Interactive Venture to the Interior/Vorstoss ins Innere, a real-time 3d experience exploring the idea of the museum as a place of cumulative knowledge construction.

Nannostomus grandis spec. nov. - ein neuer Ziersalmler aus Brasilien mit Bemerkungen zu N. beckfordi GÜNTHER, 1872, N. anomalus STEINDACHNER, 1876 und N. aripirangensis MEINKEN, 1931 (Teleostei:Characiformes: Lebiasinidae)

Nannostomus grandis spec. nov. from Brazil is described. The new species is closely related to N. beckfordi. The differences are (1) the body depth (N. grandis spec. nov. is more elongated as N. beckfordi, body depth 4,66 to 5,35 vs. 4,3 to 5,0 times in SL), (2) head length (N. grandis spec. nov. has an shorter head than N. beckfordi, 4,464,39 to 4,50 vs. 3,83,5 to 4,0 times in SL), (3) the size of body (N. grandis spec. nov. grows larger than N. beckfordi, max. 46.2 vs. max. 35.0 mm SL), and (4) the coloration in life is completely different (e.g. ventral-fins colourless in N. grandis spec. nov. vs. with milky white tips in N. beckfordi). N. grandis spec. nov. is the largest known species of the genus. This fish was captured and bred in captivity as N. anomalus in the beginning of the 20th century by aquarists (Rachow, 1926). The taxon N. anomalus Steindachner, 1976 is not clearly defined because the fi rst description is not informative, the type specimens are lost and the species is not fi gured in the fi rst description. N. anomalus Steindachner, 1876 is correctly synonymized with N. beckfordi Günther, 1872 by Hoedeman (1950) and Weitzman (1966). The determination of Rachow (1926) is wrong. For this reason the new species is named. It was possible to characterize N. aripirangensis Meinken, 1931 after the discovery of specimens from the Ilha do Arapiranga from 1928 in Museum of Natural History Berlin (ZMB). A neotype of this taxon is designated. The synonymy with N. beckfordi Günther, 1872 is confi rmed.

How to become museum director: lessons from the decisive years 1883 to 1887 and Karl August Möbius' appointment at the Zoological Museum in Berlin

Karl August Mobius (1825–1908) was one of the most eminent and influential zoologists of the second part of the 19th century in Germany, and the epitome of a German Gelehrten, or scholar. Serving as director of the Zoological Museum and professor at the university in Kiel since 1880, Mobius was finally offered the post as director at the Natural History Museum in Berlin in early 1887, at the age of 62. While Mobius’ outstanding achievements in biology have only lately been outlined and fully appreciated in several papers and a book, the exact circumstances of him becoming director in Berlin were hitherto largely unknown. Researches in the archive of the Stazione Zoologica Napoli in Italy, albeit accidentially, retrieved evidence of a correspondence between Karl Mobius and Anton Dohrn, another biological pioneer at that time and founder of the Zoological Station in Naples. While Dohrn’s answers were not found, several letters written to him by Mobius between 1883 and 1887 shed new light on an apparently long-lasting process of becoming director, on Mobius’ motivation at that time to fill this vacant position in Berlin and his actions aimed at persuading officials of him. These letters, transcribed here from the originals, with some being depicted and translated, provide new insight into Mobius’ activities during this crucial period between later in 1883, after he first learned about rumors to offer the Berlin directorship to him, and the interims appointment early in 1887. At the same time, this episode offers a history in well-connected networking and self-advertisement in academia already more than a century ago, with scientists in this fashion actively securing prestigious positions (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

The Humboldt squid Dosidicus gigas (Orbigny, 1835): History of the Berlin specimen, with a reappraisal of other (bathy-)pelagic “gigantic” cephalopods (Mollusca, Ommastrephidae, Architeuthidae)

A well preserved and with c. 1750 mm body length remarkably large specimen of an oegopsid squid, erroneously treated as representative of the giant squid ArchiteuthisSteenstrup, 1856, featured prominently in the exhibition and collection of the Natural History Museum in Berlin for most of the last century. The exact identity as well as its origin has long been obscured, though. We reviewed the evidence for the species assignment and re-identified this specimen as a representative of the pelagic Humboldt or jumbo flying squid Dosidicus gigas (Orbigny, 1835), family Ommastrephidae (arrow squids or flying squids). Following a brief account on the history of this specimen, that was studied and first mentioned 1894 by the curator of malacology in Berlin, Carl Eduard von Martens, we review relevant biological features of D. gigas, including data on the geographical distribution of this species, and compare it to other so-called “gigantic” squids, in particular to Architeuthis, adding a discussion of six other oegopsid families with large squids and of frequent misidentifications.

Description of the Male of Paederus colasi Fagel (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) and Remarks on the Paederus s. l. of the First Namibia Expedition of the Museum of Natural History Berlin

The collection of the Namibia expedition 1992 of the Museum of Natural History Berlin (MNHUB) contains two ♂ specimens of P. colasi Fagel among nine other species of the genus Paederus s. l. The description of the ♂ of P. colasi is completed with illustrations showing the distribution, the aedeagus and the habitus.

Homage to Karl August Möbius (1825-1908) and his contributions to biology: zoologist, ecologist, and director at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin

Karl August Möbius's conception and studies of “biocenosis ”, or living community, and thus his contributions in founding both, ecology and marine biology is not very widely known or acknowledged today. The same is true for his influence as one of the most eminent museum reformers, having implemented an innovative museum and exhibition concept first in the Zoological Museum in Kiel (since 1880) and later in the Natural History Museum in Berlin (since 1887). Moreover, his other scientific achievements have rarely found any mentioning or even remained unstudied. In a biographical outline I will first review Möbius's role in zoology, pointing out his concurrent scientific and popular writings and his mutually reinforcing research and civic activities that have helped his conceptual contributions to emerge. Second, I will analyse particularly two of Möbius's papers in 1874 and 1886 on the importance of the concepts of species (his “Artbegriffe ”) in context with Darwin's then new theory of evolution. These papers provided the theoretical background for Möbius's understanding of the underestimated but overwhelming diversity of organisms living on earth (that, on the other hand, should be represented in museum collections). Actually, Möbius was one of the few zoologists at his time realizing the implications of sharpening the concepts of species and the magnitude of what we today call biodiversity. I further argue that Möbius attempted and envisioned an early synthesis of systematics, evolutionary theory and ecology, justifying to regard Karl August Möbius as an albeit underrated but extraordinary zoologist of the second half of the 19th century. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Museum learning: a study of motivation and learning achievement

According to Reinmann-Rothmeier and Mandl (2001), learning environments should provide an ideal balance between constructivist and instructive elements. Most interesting for constructivist learning processes is the combination of the cognitive and the motivational domain. In an empirical study with 207 fifth-graders of the highest stratification level, we evaluated three different approaches to the learning process based on a visit to the Natural History Museum in Berlin: the three approaches were principally characterised by closed, open and mixed tasks. One objective of our study was to as-sess learning achieved through the visit and the effect of different treatments. Another goal was to evaluate the motivation of the three treatment groups. We conducted a pre/post-test study with follow-up measurement. The test instruments consisted of 26 open and closed questions in the cognitive domain and a further 12 items (subdivided into four subsections) for measuring motivation according to self-determination theory. In contrast to our hypotheses based on constructivist theories, open tasks were less successful for gaining knowledge and less intrinsically motivating.

Aplacophoran Mollusca in the Natural History Museum Berlin. An annotated catalogue of Thiele's type specimens, with a brief review of “Aplacophora” classification

Aplacophoran molluscs are a small, often neglected and still poorly known but phylogenetically important basal group, with taxa possessing morphological characters considered essential for the reconstruction of the basal Mollusca and their evolution. Currently, in most textbooks of zoology and major malacological treatise Solenogastres and Caudofoveata are viewed as constituting a monophyletic clade called Aplacophora Von Ihering, 1876, although evidence is available to the contrary, suggesting the latter to be a paraphyletic grade. Accordingly, the hitherto accepted “Aplacophora” may consist of two Recent, diphyletic taxa, viz. Solenogastres Gegenbaur, 1878 (sensu Simroth, 1893) or Neomeniomorpha Pelseneer, 1906 (also called Ventroplicida Boettger, 1955) and Caudofoveata Boettger, 1955 or Chaetodermomorpha Pelseneer, 1906. The Museum of Natural History Berlin (formerly Zoological Museum Berlin, ZMB) houses rich type material essentially of Solenogastres on which to a substantial degree the preeminent German malacologist Johannes Thiele (1860–1935), working as curator in this collection from 1905 on, has based his respective systematic accounts of that time. A review given here briefly outlines the historical development of knowledge on the systematics and phylogeny of aplacophoran molluscs allowing two conclusions: First, that evidendently Thiele struggled with the very same problems of molluscan classification as we still do more than a century of zoological systematics later; and second, that Thiele's erroneous assumption of Solenogastres being closely related to annelids rather than molluscs resulted in the deposition of aplacophoran material of the ZMB (and hence the late re-discovery of it) in the “Vermes” department, then initiating this annotated type catalogue. Here we provide information on a total of 31 aplacophoran taxa in the ZMB, including notes on type specimens and localities, their original description and current systematic placement. The majority (i.e. 25 taxa) are represented by types, essentially being named by Thiele in 23 cases. With the exception of one caudofoveate, all these aplacophoran molluscs in the ZMB are Solenogastres. Following recent classification they are assigned to 20 genera. The type material was mainly collected by German imperial expeditions, which are briefly reviewed, in particular the First German South Polar Expedition on board of the sailing vessel “Gauss”, 1901–1903, with a total of 15 new aplacophoran species, all from the very same type locality near the Antarctic Gaussberg volcano at 66°2′S, 89°38′E, collected by the expedition's biologist Ernst Vanhoffen. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

IN MEMORIAM: ERNST MAYR, 1904–2005

Ernst Walter Mayr was born on 5 July 1904 in Kempten in southern Bavaria, Germany, and passed away quietly and peacefully on 3 February 2005 in Bedford, Massachusetts. His two daughters were at his bedside during his last hours. At the time of his death, he was the oldest member of the AOU and one of its longest acting, having joined in 1929. He was elected a fellow in 1937 and served as president from 1957 to 1959. Inspired by his parents' interest in natural history, he became a naturalist at an early age and remained one throughout his life. By the time he was a teenager, Ernst could identify all of the local birds by sight as well as by call. Just after graduating from the Gymnasium in Dresden in 1923, he observed a pair of Redcrested Pochards, the first that had been seen in central Germany since 1846. Armed with a letter of introduction, Ernst interrupted his trip to the University of Greifswald and medical studies to visit Erwin Stresemann at the Natural History Museum in Berlin. Stresemann was convinced of Ernst's sighting of the ducks and, impressed with his enthusiasm for ornithology, invited Ernst to work in the museum during vacations. Soon Ernst became enmeshed in systematic ornithology. As he said many years later, this was as if he had entered paradise. Stresemann convinced Mayr to change from medical studies to zoology and ornithology, with a promise of an expedition to a tropical land once he completed his Ph.D. Before starting his studies with Stresemann, Mayr completed his basic medical courses at Greifswald, becoming a Candidate in Medicine, which would allow him to complete his medical training if his plans to become a zoologist did not work out a concern that proved unwarranted. Ernst Mayr started his training in Berlin in March 1925 and completed his Ph.D. in June 1926, just before his 22nd birthday. He began an assistantship at the Berlin Museum on 1 July 1926. Several attempts at the promised tropical expedition failed until a combined expedition to New Guinea for Lord Rothschild at the Tring Museum and for the Berlin Museum (with additional support from the American Museum of Natural History [AMNH] and Dr. L. Sanford) was organized. The work in New Guinea was successful and before Ernst could return to Europe in 1929, he was invited to take part in the AMNH's Whitney South Sea Expedition to the Solomon Islands. Ernst finally returned to Germany in April 1930, having been away for over two years. Mayr's work in the Solomon Islands greatly impressed Dr. Leonard C. Sanford, a patron of the AMNH Department of Ornithology, who urged Mayr's appointment to the department to work on the collections amassed by the Whitney South Sea Expedition. Mayr arrived in New York on 19 January 1931 for a one-year temporary appointment. With the acquisition of the Rothschild collection, Mayr was offered a permanent position at the AMNH. He stayed at the AMNH for the next two decades as the Whitney-Rothschild Curator, working on perhaps the best collection of birds that had ever existed for the analysis of geographic variation, speciation, and island biogeography. During his time at the AMNH, Mayr published his List of New Guinea Birds (1941), which is still the basic reference on this avifauna, and Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942), which

Erotylidae and Languriinae Collected in Namibia by the Museum of Natural History Berlin in 1992 and 1993 (Coleoptera, Erotylidae and Languriidae)

Seven species of Erotylidae and one species of Languriidae were collected by the expeditions of the Museum of Natural History Berlin to Namibia in 1992 and 1993. Dacne aequinoctialis (THOMSON), Megalodacne (Romodacne) natalensis (FAIRMAIRE), Episcaphula rudithorax DELKESKAMP, Episcaphula ruficornis HELLER (Erotylidae), and Promecolanguria dollmanni ARROW (Languriidae) are new for Namibia.

Erotylidae and Languriinae Collected in Namibia by the Museum of Natural History Berlin in 1992 and 1993 (Coleoptera, Erotylidae and Languriidae)

AbstractSeven species of Erotylidae and one species of Languriidae were collected by the expeditions of the Museum of Natural History Berlin to Namibia in 1992 and 1993. Dacne aequinoctialis (THOMSON), Megalodacne (Romodacne) natalensis (FAIRMAIRE), Episcaphula rudithorax DELKESKAMP, Episcaphula ruficornis HELLER (Erotylidae), and Promecolanguria dollmanni ARROW (Languriidae) are new for Namibia.