Herpetology Collection

This department holds the fifth largest herpetological collection in Germany, with about 70 % reptiles and 30 % amphibians, stored essentially in c. 17.000 jars, supplemented by several hundred dried skeleton and skin specimens and 259 sets of serial histological sections. About half of the collection, with data from c. 33.000 individuals, are now digitized, using FileMaker Pro software (July 2015), among those are 190 types that are available online through GBIF; a type catalogue has been published by Hallermann (1998, 2006). As the inventory catalogue was destroyed in 1943 during WW II, the holdings and data of the collections had to be restored from the information preserved on the original labels, which as started by Prof. Koepcke (1914-2000); see Hallermann (2007, and references therein). The collections holds some important historical specimens, among them e.g. reptiles collected by Maximilian Prince zu Wied-Neuwied (1782-1867) during his famous expedition to Brazil 1815-1817; described in 1825 these are among the oldest preserved holdings in Germany. The Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change also comprises the herpetological collections of Johann Gustav Fischer (1819-1889), a most distinguished Hamburg herpetologist at his time. He described 106 reptile and six amphibian taxa, of which only 34 and four, respectively, are still present at the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, while the remainders were lost during WW II. For a more detailed account of the history of the museum’s herpetology see Hallerman (2007).