Mollusca Collection - Museu Nacional/UFRJ
Citation
Pimenta A (2024). Mollusca Collection - Museu Nacional/UFRJ. Version 1.10. Museu Nacional / UFRJ. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/g5ykee accessed via GBIF.org on 2025-05-21.Description
The Mollusca Collection of the Museu Nacional (acronym MNRJ), one of the most important of its kind in South America, holds more than 40,000 registered lots and about 15,000 unregistered lots, which are currently being processed, including dry shells and preserved specimens from Brazilian and foreign provenance. Most lots are from Brazilian localities, but several lots from other coutries are also present, specially from South America. Species from marine and non marine habitats are represented, as well as molluscs from sambaquis. The type material stems from studies carried out since the beginning of the 20th century by Brazilian and foreign researchers. A total of 683 type lots are currently deposited.Purpose
To serve as repository for molluscan biodiversity in the World, especially Brazil.
Sampling Description
Study Extent
Most of the specimens deposited in the Mollusca Collection were collected by several reserachers, since teh beggining of the colection.Sampling
Most of the samples in the Mollusca Collection consists in dry shells, but several ethanol preserved specimens are also present.Method steps
- The taxonomic and occurence information contained in each record was registered in written catalogue books and in the lables associated to each lot. Such information was digitilized in a Excel sheet.
Additional info
The information contained in the present database were comppiled from the historical and current catalogue books and lables. The taxonomic determinations of the specimesn are hypothesis and should not be used for any purpose without proper analysis of the specimens. Museu Nacional is not responsible for the misuse of the information.Taxonomic Coverages
The taxonomic coverage of the Mollusca Collection includes six of the seven molluscan classes, only Monoplacophora is not represented. Currently, around 6,200 molluscan species are catalogued in the collection, but several lots determined as ‘sp.’ or ‘spp.’ are included, representing, in many cases, potential material for taxonomic studies. Gastropoda is the most representative class (~75%). followed by Bivalvia (~21%), Scaphopoda (~2%), Cephalopoda (~0.6%), Polyplacophora (~1%) and Aplacophora (~0.4%).
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Molluscarank: phylum
Geographic Coverages
Most of the lots stored in the Mollusca Collection are from Brazil (~ 75%), but several lots from other localities in the world, specially in South America, are also present. Among the lots from Brazil, the southeast region is by far the most representated.
Bibliographic Citations
Contacts
Alexandre Pimentaoriginator
position: Professor Associado
Museu Nacional/UFRJ
Alexandre Pimenta
metadata author
position: Professor Associado
Museu Nacional/UFRJ
email: alexpim@mn.ufrj.br
Alexandre Pimenta
user
position: Professor Associado
Museu Nacional/UFRJ
BR
Alexandre Pimenta
administrative point of contact
position: Professor Associado
Museu Nacional/UFRJ
Quinta da Boa Vista
Rio de Janeiro
20940-040
RJ
BR
Telephone: 2125626989
email: alexpim@mn.ufrj.br