Annelids
The annelid collection was established in November 2019 and unifies the various groups of segmented worms of the Museum of Nature - Zoology Hamburg, which have previously been scattered between different collections. As one of the world’s most diverse and taxonomically important collections the approximately 170.000 specimens comprise type material for more than 2.400 species, which are mostly preserved in ethanol. The main highlights of the collection are the oligochaetes (earthworms and relatives) collected by Johann Wilhelm Michaelsen with more than 1.300 holotypes, and Ernst Heinrich Ehlers’ polychaetes, which form the basis of the collection. Hamburg’s focus on the deep sea, Arctic and Antarctic waters originated through the intense sampling efforts from the previous curators Gesa Hartmann-Schröder and Angelika Brandt, who almost doubled the number of objects in the collections.