University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge

Seven of us met at the museum where Richard Preece, Senior Assistant Curator in Malacology, took us “behind the scenes” to view the important mollusc and other zoological collections and also into the galleries themselves. The Dry Invertebrate Store containing the main mollusc collection, is a large area, with a variety of cabinets containing the taxonomically arranged specimens (figure 1).

Richard explained that the mollusc collection is formed around that bequeathed to the university by Robert MacAndrew in 1873. His collection contains almost 16,000 species and 200,000 specimens, including types, many of which are self-collected from areas including the Gulf of Suez prior to the building of the Suez Canal, an event that has subsequently resulted in faunal exchange between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. MacAndrew was interested in growth series and Richard showed us examples of such series mounted on characteristic blue card. This collection includes part of that accumulated by W.H. Benson who lived and collected in India and neighbouring areas in the early 19th century, consisting of land and freshwater shells, many of which are endemic species from localised habitats, some of which are possibly now extinct. Richard showed us several drawers of Benson designated type specimens from this collection, the status of many of which are, unfortunately, difficult to confirm. The mollusc collection also includes good representation of island faunas, including series of Pacific island Partula snails, many of which are now extinct and the important R.T. Lowe collection of Madieran non-marine molluscs. There is in addition the Jane Saul Collection from 1895, consisting of about 13,000 shells, mostly from the Indo-Pacific, including a number of type specimens, some of which were figured by Lovell Reeve in his superbly illustrated Conchologia Iconica.

_{figure 1: Richard introducing the mollusc collections.}

The museum is progressing a project to image all its type specimens and Hilary Ketchum explained an ongoing contract she is involved with at the museum to catalogue the bivalves and make this data available online.

We visited the extensive spirit collections (figures 2 and 3) where Richard pointed out that some of the jars have blue stripes indicating a type specimen. “We have a lot of type material, including specimens brought back on the Beagle by Charles Darwin. There are some type molluscs: for example we have the Walter Collinge collection, so we have the type of Arion flagellus that he described. We also have material from the British Antarctic Survey; for example Antarctic bivalves.” As we went to leave the room there was a brief moment when we thought we were locked in for the weekend with the jars of pickled snakes and no mobile signal, but luckily the door was eventually opened and we emerged into the light of the main galleries, where Richard explained interesting exhibits of fossil tetrapods from Greenland, early Pleistocene faunas of Britain and Charles Darwin’s beetles, barnacles and finches.

After a brief visit to the vertebrate collections, the opportunity was taken to return to the molluscs to examine areas of personal interest to the participants, which included British freshwater mussels and African and New Zealand landsnails. Trays of bivalves in need of identification were also put out in the demonstration room and assistance was provided and offered where possible. A fascinating and absorbing day was had by all and our thanks go to Richard, Hilary and Richard’s research student Tom White for making it so successful.

_{figures 2 and 3: viewing specimens in the spirit room.}