Fossil and Recent Molluscan Types in the Auckland War Memorial Museum
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Auckland, New Zealand, 2016. RECORDS OF THE AUCKLAND MUSEUM ISSN 1174-9202 (Print) ISSN 2422-8567 (Online) In continuation of Records of the Auckland Institute and Museum Volume 1, Number 1 (June 1930) Published by Order of the Trust Board Roy CLARE C.B.E., Director [Vol. 50 was published on 14 December 2015] Editors J.W. EARLY and P.F. PEREIRA Production L. FUREY The Auckland War Memorial Museum has a statutory role to advance and promote cultural and scientific scholarship and research that is met in part by publication of the Records of the Auckland Museum. The Records have been published continuously since 1930. Issues are annual. The Records contain the results of original research dealing with material in the collections of Auckland Museum, and research carried out by Museum staff members in their particular subjects. All papers are refereed. Instructions for authors are given at the end of this, or recent volumes. The Records are distributed, largely by exchange, to libraries at about 250 academic institutions-throughout the world. Proposals for exchange agreements should be addressed to the Auckland Museum Library Manager. The contents of the Records are reported in Index New Zealand, Anthropological Index (Royal Anthropological Institute, London), Anthropological Literature (Harvard University), Biological Abstracts, Kew Record of Taxonomic Literature, Zoological Record and GeoRef (American Geological Institute). Vol. 34 contained indexes to the contents of volumes 1-33. Monographs are produced occasionally in the series Bulletin of the Auckland Museum (see website: Library Services/Museum Publications). © 2016, Auckland War Memorial Museum. Private Bag 92018, Auckland, New Zealand www.aucklandmuseum.com Cover image: Holotype of Hemideina gigantea Colenso, AMNZ21862. Photo: Peter Quin. Table of Contents Foreword JW Articles Fossil and Recent molluscan types in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Part 1: Bivalvia 8JMNB.#MPN Provenance of the type specimen of William Colenso’s giant weta Hemideina gigantea. John W. Early Biogeography and biodiversity of intertidal micromollusca of northern New Zealand .BSHBSFU4.PSMFZ#SVDF8)BZXBSE Ostracoda of the Cavalli Islands, Northland, New Zealand .BSHBSFU4.PSMFZ#SVDF8)BZXBSE Fossil and Recent molluscan types in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Part 1: Bivalvia Wilma M. Blom Auckland War Memorial Museum Abstract The Marine Department of Auckland War Memorial Museum has nearly 1800 primary types and a further 1770 paratypes and paralectotypes types in its collections. The majority are molluscan and this frst part of a catalogue of these collections reviews the types for 316 bivalve species. It deals with 222 primary types and 242 secondary types, which are almost evenly split between Recent taxa (159) and fossil taxa (157). Type material is fgured for the frst time for the following taxa: Nucula certisinus Finlay, 1930; Nucula gallinacea Finlay, 1930; Nucula rossiana Finlay, 1930; Poroleda pertubata Iredale, 1924; Notovola marwicki Finlay, 1930; Spissatella acculta Finlay, 1926; Spissatella clifdenensis Finlay, 1926; Maorimactra acuminella Finlay, 1930; Scalpomactra continua Finlay, 1930; Amphidesma forsteriana Finlay, 1927; Angulus(Peronidia) tumens Laws, 1933; Gari oamarutica Finlay, 1930. Keywords Auckland Museum, name-bearing types, Mollusca. INTRODUCTION Institute and Curator of the Auckland Museum in January 1874. Principally a botanist, he also collected The Marine Department of Auckland War Memorial and published widely on other areas of natural history. Museum (AWMM) holds nearly 1800 lots of In 1878 he published the descriptions of three new name-bearing types, in the form of holotypes, neotypes, species of opisthobranchiate seaslugs collected in or syntypes and lectotypes, and a further 1770 iconotypes, near Waitemata Harbour (Cheeseman, 1878). Although paratypes and paralectotypes. These are spread across the species have been synonymised since, the paintings several phyla, but the majority are Mollusca. They of these specimens are the earliest known marine types include terrestrial as well as marine species, and fossil (iconotypes) held by Auckland Museum. as well as extant taxa. In 1929, when Auckland Museum moved to its Auckland Museum’s frst list of biological primary present site in Auckland Domain, more staf positions types, which included the molluscs, was published by became available. A.W.B. (Baden) Powell (Fig. 1b), Powell (1941) and he followed this with a supplement who as a 15 year-old in 1916 had been made an honorary in 1949 (Powell, 1949). A catalogue of fossil and Recent curator by T.F. Cheeseman (Cernohorsky, 1988), became molluscan types was started in the 1990s by Glenys the Museum’s frst paid conchology and palaeontology Stace and Nick de Carteret, but never fnished. The curator at that time and held the position until his present publication is a much amended and expanded retirement in 1968. During his more than half-century’s version of the 1990s catalogue, and covers only the association with the Museum he acquired a large number Bivalvia as part 1 of a larger catalogue. It deals with 222 of shells for the collections from a variety of sources. primary types and 242 secondary types representing 316 In 1929, the Rev. W.H. Webster gave his collection of species. They are almost evenly split between Recent New Zealand and foreign Mollusca, which contained (159) and fossil (157) taxa. The majority are from New several type specimens. In 1936 the Museum bought Zealand (302), but there are also nine from Australia, the New Zealand Tertiary molluscan collections of C. particularly South Australia but also Enderby Land and R. (Charles) Laws, including 250 holotypes. Laws Norfolk Island, two from the Falkland Islands, one from collected extensively, but specialised in micromolluscs Kerguelen Island, one from the Lord Howe Rise, and (Fleming & Grant-Mackie, 1985), and his work on one from New Caledonia. Pyramidellidae alone contributed more than 100 Auckland Museum’s frst organised molluscan primary types to the Auckland Museum collections. collections were started by Thomas Frederic Cheeseman The H.J. (Harold) Finlay private collection of Recent (Fig. 1a), who was appointed Secretary of the Auckland and fossil Mollusca, comprising 14,000 species lots Records of the Auckland Museum 51: 1-48 2016 2 Wilma M. Blom Figure 1a. Thomas Frederic Cheeseman was the sole Figure 1b. A.W.B (Baden) Powell amongst the mollusc Curator of Auckland Museum from 1874 until his death storage cabinets. He made the wooden trays (Dell, 1987) in 1923. He collected widely across all areas of natural and used many other cheap and readily available storage history. containers, such as lingerie and shoe boxes. with 437 primary type specimens, was purchased by Powell himself also contributed a large amount the Museum in 1937 (Powell et al., 1967). Finlay, who of material from his numerous feld trips around New spent most of his life in a wheelchair after contracting Zealand and its ofshore islands. By special arrangement poliomyelitis at the age of 4, undertook all his molluscan with the Museum Council his private collection of 60,000 work as a private individual. He received a DSc in specimen lots of New Zealand and foreign Recent and 1927, but despite this spent much of the next 10 years fossil molluscs came to the Museum on his appointment unemployed and impoverished. He worked of and on (Powell et al., 1967). These were eventually integrated for oil companies and at some time in the mid-1930s also with the Museum’s collections. His material, which received fnancial support from Auckland Museum to was mostly the result of his own feldwork, contributed carry out his research (Hornibrook, 1971). When Finlay fossils from important Tertiary faunas at localities such fnally secured employment with the New Zealand as Waihi Stream, Cape Runaway, Motutara (the old Geological Survey in 1937 he switched to foraminiferal name for the coast south of Muriwai), and Waiheke research after which Auckland Museum acquired much (Dell, 1987). He was a member of the “Discovery II” of his molluscan collections. Another signifcant section Expedition (1925); Auckland Museum’s “Will Watch” of the fossil types are the 64 primary types contributed Expedition (1934); the Danish “Galathea” Expedition through J. (Jack) Marwick’s work on the Late Pliocene (1950); and the “Gloria Maris” Expedition to New (Waipipian) Kaawa Formation which was found 25–30m Guinea (1955). He also received molluscan material below the surface in the newly dug Waitemata Brewery collected by the British, Australian, and New Zealand well, Otahuhu, Auckland. J. Healy of the New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE, 1929-31). Geological Survey (now GNS Science) heard that the Between 1960 and 1965, the American philanthropist well would be dug and arranged with Morton Coutts, W.B. Dixon Stroud sponsored molluscan research by the general manager of the brewery, for collections to be Powell. This enabled feld work to be carried out at the made. Marwick, along with J.A. Bartrum, C.A. Fleming, Three Kings and Poor Knights Islands, as well as other A.W.B. Powell and C.R. Laws collected from the of-shore expeditions in Stroud’s yacht. Powell named spoil dumped at the site between November 1945 and 1190 living and fossil Mollusca and two Crustacea January 1946 (Marwick, 1948). The Laws and Finlay (Cernohorsky, 1988) and the type specimens for most collections together with the Marwick types make the of these are lodged in Auckland Museum’s collections. most important collection of fossil molluscan types in In 1969 Walter Cernohorsky succeeded Powell as New Zealand next to that of the GNS Science. curator of malacology, until his retirement in 1989. He Fossil and Recent molluscan types in the Auckland War Memorial Museum 3 specialized mostly in Indo-Pacifc Mollusca and his as he numbered the types by the alphabetical sequence taxonomic work contributed 31 primary type specimens in which they were listed in these publications. A deposited with Auckland Museum. record of the numbers was kept in both a card fle and Both Powell and Cernohorsky kept all type annotated copies of the catalogues (Fig.