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The malacological collection comprises around 150,000 series of approximately 10,000 species (approx. 347 series of Aplacophora; 1,300 series of Polyplacophora; 14,800 series of Bivalvia; 130 series of Scaphopoda; 130,000 series of Gastropoda; 3,400 series of Cephalopoda).
The collection contains material from all continents and all oceans. Important focal points of the collection are land snails from south-eastern Europe and the Near East, north-western South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru) and central Africa (Rwanda, Uganda), freshwater molluscs from Thailand, marine molluscs from the Antarctic and Patagonian regions and squid, especially from the Atlantic.
The collection contains around 2,600 type series. These include 340 holotypes, 15 lectotypes, 394 syntype series, 4 neotypes, 1,434 paratype series and 61 paralectotype series. Most of the taxa for which type material is available were described by the following authors: R. Brandt, E. Degner, W. Fauer, P. Glöer, B. Hausdorf, P. Kaiser, G. Pfeffer, L. Pfeiffer and H. Strebel.
Collection history
Before the Second World War, the mollusc collection of the Hamburg Zoological Museum comprised around 300,000 series. The dry collection of the Hamburg Zoological Museum was almost completely destroyed when the museum was bombed in 1943. However, most of the alcohol material was stored in an underground railway shaft and was thus preserved. In addition to numerous smaller donations, the mollusc collection of the Altona Museum, which was taken over in 1950, formed the basis for the reconstruction of the dry collection after the war. This collection mainly contained part of Otto Semper's collection and the collection of Ch. Kleyser. Otto Semper's collection also included numerous types by Ludwig Pfeiffer and Karl-Theodor Menke. The collection was increased in particular by catches from research vessels ("Walter Herwig", "Polarstern") and by the acquisition of private collections. In particular, parts of Rolf Brandt's collection and the collections of Eberhard Clauss, Peter Glöer and Wolfgang Fauer should be mentioned here.
The first curator of the museum's scientific collection was the malacologist and crustaceologist Prof Dr J. Georg Pfeffer in 1879. With the appointment of I. Max O. Leschke as curator of the mollusc collection, malacology became an independent department of the museum in 1907. After Leschke's death in 1918, Pfeffer's nephew Prof. Dr Eduard Degner took over the department from 1920 to 1951. From 1952 to 1956, the malacological collection was temporarily managed by Wilhelm Meise, the curator of the ornithology department. From 1956 to 1980, the department was managed by Prof Dr Peter Kaiser. After that, the malacological collection was temporarily managed by Prof. Dr Michael Dzwillo, curator of the Invertebrates I Department, until Prof. Dr Bernhard Hausdorf took over as head of the department in 1995.
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