The Fossil Fish Collection at the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie
Citation
Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns. The Fossil Fish Collection at the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/wskrvt accessed via GBIF.org on 2024-12-15.Description
The Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie (Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology, BSPG) has with currently about 9,800 specimens one of the most important collections of fossil fishes in Europe. Of international importance are mainly type specimens and originals to published standard works of Louis Agassiz, Andreas Wagner, Georg Graf zu Münster, Otto-Maria Reis, Karl Alfred von Zittel, among others, mostly derived from the Mesozoic of southern Germany (Alpine and Germanic Triassic, Jurassic, and especially the Upper Jurassic lithographic limestone or Solnhofener Plattenkalke from the Franconian Alb, Bavaria). These have been described partially in monographic treatises since the 19th Century. With 4,000 fishes the ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) mostly from the Solnhofen area are also the most numerous specimens within the collection. These stocks are the subject of several ongoing investigations on the taxonomy and systematics of the bony fishes. They are particular evidence for the origin and phylogeny of the early modern bony fishes (Teleostei), as well as for ecological, biogeographic and stratigraphic aspects of the respective depositional environments and ecosystems. In addition to the aforementioned main part of the collection there are also considerable numbers of specimens of various important other European localities: Fishes from the Paleozoic of Germany (e.g. Bundenbach) and the Tertiary of Italy (e.g. Monte Bolca), Thrace (Turkey) and Southern Germany (each several hundred fossils) as well as singular finds. Due to the loss of the old inventory (and a large part of the old collection) during the Second World War (see Dehm 1978, Jung et al. 1993, cf. w. Dacque 1934) there has only been a later reconstructed, and since then in handwritten and typewritten form continued inventory without digital capture. Only for some of the most important items (types), there is a digital table of data. The extensive collection growth in recent years through the acquisition of private collections and the paleontological collection of the University of Wurzbourg, as well as through purchased acquisitions and, finally, the observation, that the BSPG collection is highly frequented by the international research, make a digital recording of the collection an urgent necessity. For more details see also http://www.snsb.info/DatabaseClients/BSPGpiscescoll/About.html.Taxonomic Coverages
Geographic Coverages
Bibliographic Citations
Contacts
Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns – SNSB IT Center, Münchentechnical point of contact
email: snsb-it-center@snsb.de
Markus Moser
administrative point of contact
email: moser@snsb.de
Markus Moser
originator
email: moser@snsb.de