Occurrence data of some marine invertebrates and freshwater crabs housed in the natural history collection at the National Museums of Kenya

John Kochey; Mary Gikungu; James Gitundu Kairo; Esther Kioko; Penina Aloo Obudho; Stefano Canicci; Thomas K Mkare

doi:10.15468/ewyl4o

Occurrence data of some marine invertebrates and freshwater crabs housed in the natural history collection at the National Museums of Kenya

Citation

Kochey J, Gikungu M, Kairo J G, Kioko E, Obudho P A, Canicci S, Mkare T K (2020). Occurrence data of some marine invertebrates and freshwater crabs housed in the natural history collection at the National Museums of Kenya. Version 1.4. National Museums of Kenya. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/ewyl4o accessed via GBIF.org on 2024-12-13.

Description

The Kenyan aquatic systems comprising of both marine and freshwater ecosystems is rich in biodiversity. The Kenyan coastline covers about 640 Km long and is characterized by different habitats including coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, rocky shores and cliffs, lagoons and the open sea. These biodiversity plays important roles including human food sources, ecosystem functions including nutrient cycling and food web dynamics, as ecosystem engineers, pollinations, potential sources of medicine while coral reefs provide bio-physical support to other critical habitats such as sea-grasses and mangroves. However, these biodiversity faces numerous threats such as destruction of their natural habitats, overharvesting and overexploitation, pollution, invasive species coupled with global warming with many more species likely disappearing even before being discovered and archived. About 1800 marine faunal species are documented in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) Region (Richmond, 2002). Despite the documentation, only a few species are archived in the natural history collection at the National Museums of Kenya (NMK). This greatly hampers marine taxonomic research hence the reliance on other international museums housing similar species for identification based on type specimen material (holotype/syntype). Museum scientific collections provide irreplaceable resources that are important in taxonomic, biogeographic and evolutionary research studies. Hence, marine researchers in are highly encouraged to deposit scientific specimens, in natural history collection at NMK, as scientific reference material. NMK is the custodian of Kenya’s natural heritage. Here, we provide a data-subset of some important Kenyan marine biodiversity data archived in the Invertebrate Zoology Section at NMK. These include 43 species of crabs mostly mangrove crabs, 3 species of Barnacles, 7 species of mangrove molluscs, 33 species of ornamental molluscs used in shell trade, 3 species of exclusive marine commercial mollusks, 3 species of commercial prawns, 3 species of commercial lobsters, 15 species of echinoderms and 15 species of corals. Also included are some 9 species of fresh water crabs in Kenya.

Taxonomic Coverages

Decapods
common name: Crabs rank: order
Carideans
common name: Prawns rank: order
Gastropods
common name: molluscs rank: order
Scleractinia
common name: corals rank: order
echinoderms
common name: sea urchins, sea cucumbers

Geographic Coverages

Mainly along the Kenyan coast and some inland waters in Kenya and Tanzania

Bibliographic Citations

Contacts

John Kochey
originator
position: Senior Research Scientist
National Museums of Kenya
Box 40658
Nairobi
00100
Nairobi
KE
email: jkochey@museums.or.ke
homepage: http://www.museums.or.ke

Mary Gikungu
originator
position: Director National Research Repository
National Museums of Kenya
Box 40658
Nairobi
00100
Nairobi
KE
email: mgikungu@museums.or.ke
homepage: http://www.museums.or.ke

James Gitundu Kairo
originator
position: Principal Research Scientist
Kenya Marine & Fisheries Research Institute
Nairobi
Nairobi
KE
email: gkairo@yahoo.com
homepage: https://www.kmfri.co.ke

Esther Kioko
originator
position: Head of Zoology Department
National Museums of Kenya
Box 40658
Nairobi
00100
Nairobi
KE
email: ekioko@museums.or.ke
homepage: http://www.museums.or.ke

Penina Aloo Obudho
originator
position: Deputy Vice Chancellor
Karatina University Kenya
KE
email: aloopenina@yahoo.com

Stefano Canicci
originator
position: Senior Professor
School of Biological Sciences, University of Hong Kong
JP
email: cannicci@hku.hk

Thomas K Mkare
originator
position: Research Scientist Head of Centre of Aquatic Genomics, Forensics & Bioinformatics
Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute
Box 81651
Mombasa
80100
Mombasa
KE
email: tmkare@kmfri.go.ke
homepage: http://kmfri.go.ke

John Kochey
metadata author
position: Senior Research Scientist
National Museums of Kenya
Box 40658
Nairobi
00100
Nairobi
KE
email: jkochey@museums.or.ke
homepage: http://www.museums.or.ke

Lawrence Monda
processor
position: ICT Manager
National Museums of Kenya
Box 40658
Nairobi
00100
Nairobi
KE
email: lmonda@museums.or.ke
homepage: http://www.museums.or.ke

John Kochey
administrative point of contact
position: Senior Research Scientist
National Museums of Kenya
Box 40658
Nairobi
00100
Nairobi
KE
email: jkochey@museums.or.ke
homepage: http://www.museums.or.ke