Molluscs Homepage | Type Collection

Mollusc and Brachiopod Types in the Australian Museum

The following pages contain databases of the type holdings of the Australian Museum Malacology and Brachiopod collections. These pages will primarily be of interest to specialists working in the field. However, non-specialists are more than welcome to use them.

The Australian Museum mollusc research collection is the largest in Australia, with more than 1,000,000 molluscs. As well as Recent (living) species, either as dry shell or preserved specimens, the collection also includes Tertiary fossils. Fossils older than this are held in the Palaeontology Section.

The databases list types by the scientific name under which they were originally described. At this stage the senior synonym (current valid name for the species) is not given except at family level. These lists contains a total of approximately 9,500 type lots, about half of which are primary type lots (holotype, syntype, lectotype or neotype). However, more than a thousand secondary types are not yet listed, and the types of recently described taxa may not yet be included. There also a few species which are not molluscs or brachiopods, but were originally described as such.

Each record contains the current family name, original family name (if used), original genus, original species and original subspecies (if used), type status, author(s) and date of description, and Australian Museum registration number, with a "C." prefix. There is also a broad geographical locality of the type, by country or state within Australia. For this database, Australia is restricted to the continental shelf, while offshore territories, basins and islands such as Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, Antarctica, Macquarie Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, Coral Sea and Tasman Sea are treated as separate "countries". Similarly, political units zoogeographically separated from the rest of their countries are treated as separate countries eg Hawaii and U.S.A.

These type lists has been evolving over some years. Ms. Max Sharam did the initial entry work into a prior database. Species not yet updated from this initial entry may be recognised by an open "author, date" format vs the closed "author,date" of more recent entries and updates.

While considerable effort has gone into producing these databases, there are likely to be some errors. Use the information with discretion, and if you would like further details or have found errors, contact Ian Loch, Collection Supervisor, Malacology - Email Ian Loch

Top