Ichthyology Collection

Ichthyology Type Collection

Among the most scientifically important specimens are the types, the specimens that officially and uniquely link published scientific names to described species. The ANSP primary type collection has 2,797 specimens (1,456 holotypes, 110 lectotypes, 8 neotypes, 1,223 syntypes) of freshwater and marine taxa (59 and 41% of specimens, respectively) representing a total of 1,822 species/subspecies in 42 orders of fishes. Its scope is worldwide with specimens from North America (25%), South America (18%), Europe/Mediterranean (15%), Pacific Ocean (13%), Atlantic Ocean (12%), Africa (7%), Asia/Australia (7%) and the Indian Ocean/Red Sea (3%). The collection also includes about 14,755 paratypes of 1,690 species published or in preparation. ANSP has one of the largest and most diverse collections of type specimens of fishes in world. Among collections in Canada and the US, the ANSP ichthyological type collection is exceeded only by the collection at the National Museum of Natural History (USNM) in terms of diversity (nominal species represented) and number of primary types (Poss and Collette, 1995). Overall, the Academy's ichthyology collection is ranked third in terms of the number of species represented by types and fourth for the number of secondary types (Poss and Collette, 1995).

Highlights among the ANSP fish types are those of species described by some of the founding fathers of North American ichthyology: Charles Alexander Lesueur, John Edwards Holbrook, Theodore Nicholas Gill, Edward Drinker Cope, David Starr Jordan, and even Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. The private collection of Edward Drinker Cope largely seeded the ANSP type collection. Cope’s types were gifted to the Academy in 1898, painstakingly sorted and documented by the Academy’s first curator of fishes, Henry W. Fowler, and currently include 766 primary types of 341 fishes described by Cope between 1861 and 1894. A prolific taxonomist, Fowler greatly expanded the type collection with 1,001 primary types of 997 species described by him between 1899 and 1958.

Other important types are among the collection of Charles Lucien Bonaparte, nephew of the Emperor Napoleon. Primarily from Italy and the Mediterranean, the Bonaparte collection includes 430 primary types (97% syntypes) of 49 species described by him between 1833 and 1846. Originally preserved in alcohol, the Bonaparte specimens have become uniquely valuable as sources of DNA for the characterization of species prior to man-mediated translocations. Ketmaier et al. (2004) amplified 786 bp of cytb (about 70% of the gene) from a syntype (ANSP 6212) of the minnow Scardinius scardafa (Bonaparte, 1837). They used this sequence data to help identify the single surviving “pure” population of S. scardafa in Italy and make recommendations for its proper management.