The Zoological Museum Hamburg (ZMH) fish collection: a global biodiversity archive of fishes

National and international importance and curatorship

The ZMH fish collection is the largest in Germany and one of the largest European fish collections. The Collection Database now contains about 9.000 nominal species and 74.000 lots (Thiel et al. 2009).

W. Ladiges (1910-1984), successor to G. Duncker (1870-1953), was curator of the fish collection from 1936 to 1974, with a pause from 1953 to 1957 when E. Mohr (1894-1968) was curator. H. Wilkens, the fellow of W. Ladiges, was curator of the ZMH fish collection from 1974 to 2006. As of 2006 the ZMH fish collection is curated by R. Thiel.

However, among others, J. C. Godeffroy (1813–1885), E. Ehrenbaum (1861–1942), G. Krefft (1912–1993, M.F. W. Stehmann, A. Post and H.C. John contributed substantially to the development of various fish collections in Hamburg which sourcely were merged into the ZMH fish collection.

History

The basic material of the ZMH fish collection was obtained from the former Natural History Museum in Hamburg founded in 1843. During the second half of the 19th century the fish collection increased markedly (Fig. 1).  Hamburg traders and captains of seagoing vessels brought many objects for the collection, international trade being the main source of material at the time.

Additionally, the fish collection profited from the sale of the collections from the Godeffroy Museum, which was founded in Hamburg in 1861 by Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy, who actively collected material until the beginning of the 1880s. When the Godeffroy Museum closed in 1886, all zoological objects, including fishes, were transferred to the Natural History Museum in Hamburg. By the end of 1875, the number of lots reached 550 and the 4400 mark was surpassed in 1900 (Fig. 1). Overall, 9.9% of the current collection stems from the 1851 to 1900 period.

Expeditions for exploration of unknown habitats and territories were the main collection sources in the first half of the 20th century. As shown in Fig. 1, the first two decades of the 20th century marked a period of relatively rapid expansion of fish specimens at the ZMH. About 11% of the material registered in the database originates from the period 1901 to 1920. About 2500 lots (14%) of the older material were lost during World War II.

However, the lost holdings were quickly compensated by new material. A period of most noteworthy expansion in the ongoing collection was between 1951 and 2000, when some 74.6% of all current lots were stored in the ZMH fish collection. Circa 1975, catalogued entries surpassed the 30 000 mark, in 2000 exceeding 43 000 (Fig. 1). In 1978, important marine and freshwater material expanded the collection with about 1500 lots of fish from the Georg-August-University Göttingen collection. Much of the collection expansion derived from the abundant marine material (23 860 catalogued lots) of the ISH (Institut für Seefischerei, Hamburg) in 1993.

New material is continuously incorporated into the ever-expanding collection; to continue the expansion, more than 28 000 thousand lots of marine fish larvae (mainly from the Atlantic Ocean), chiefly collected by H. C. John from the German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research (DZMB), were absorbed in 2006 and 2008. Recently, a large number of marine and freshwater fish larvae and juveniles from the Baltic Sea and the Elbe River were provided by own research projects of Section Ichthyology; this material has yet to be catalogued.

Geographic and systematic coverage

The ZMH fish collection is world-wide in coverage and with species originating from a broad diversity of freshwater, estuarine, shallow marine-nearshore, marine-offshore and deep sea habitats. Fig. 2 shows the origins of 20 782 lots maintained at the ZMH collection, indicating collection location (except the material from the former ISH collection).
The largest number of lots of all fish groups in this part of the collection originate from Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and Middle America. Marine fishes are mainly represented by lots from the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
More than 20 000 additional lots of marine fishes stem mainly from the Atlantic Ocean, from the former ISH collection accounting for 70% of the fish genera of the Atlantic (890 of 1250) and about two thirds of the described species (about 3000).
At present, species from 60 orders and 378 families are represented in the ZMH fish. The collection has representatives of 29% of the estimated living species of fishes, 73% of the families and 97% of the orders.
Approximately 93% of the species with representation in the collection database are actinopterygians and 7% are elasmobranchs. The phylogenetic large-scale groups of Myxini, Petromyzontida, Holocephali and Sarcopterygii together represent <1% of the species actually indexed in the ZMH fish collection database.

Type collection

The collection contains about 1321 type series (lots) and 3656 type specimens (Fig. 3); 41.8% of the type lots are primary types: 335 holotypes (25.3%), 214 syntypes (16.2%), 3 neotypes (0.2%), 1 lectotype (0.1%); 56.4% of the lots are secondary types: 744 paratypes (56.3%), 1 paralectotype (0.1%); and 1.6% of the type lots are designated holo- or paratypes.
This distribution of the different type categories is mainly governed by actinopterygians, which contribute 1197 lots (90.6%) to the type series and 3458 specimens (94.6%) to the type specimens. Represented with 107 type series (8.1%) and 173 type specimens (4.7%), the elasmobranchs are the second largest group in relation to both the total number of type lots and type specimens in the ZMH fish collection.
In contrast to actinopterygians, which are also represented with a relatively high amount of primary types, elasmobranchs occur mainly within the secondary type series (77.6% paratypes) in the fish collection. The type material of the ZMH fish collection has been published by Ladiges (1958), Ladiges et al. (1958), Wilkens (1977), Krefft (1978), Krefft (1987), Wilkens & Dohse (1993) an Thiel et al. (2009).

References with focus on ZMH type material

THIEL, R., EIDUS, I. & NEUMANN, R. (2009): The Zoological Museum Hamburg (ZMH) fish collection as a global biodiversity archive of elasmobranchs and actinopterygians as well as other fish taxa. Journal of Applied Ichthyology 25, Supplement 1: 9-32.

WILKENS, H. & DOHSE, R. (1993): Die Typen der Ichthyologischen Sammlung des Zoologischen Instituts und Zoologischen Museums der Universität Hamburg (ZMH), Teil IV (Ichthyological collection examples in the Zoological State Institute and Zoological Museum of the University of Hamburg (ZMH), Part IV). Mitt. Hamb. Zool. Mus. Inst. 90, 401–426, [in German].

KREFFT, G. (1987): Type specimens of fishes in the collection of the Institut für Seefischerei, Hamburg. Part II. Mitt. Inst. Seefisch. 42: 69-89, [in German].

KREFFT, G. (1978): Fischtypen in der Sammlung des Instituts für Seefischerei, Hamburg (Types of fishes in the collection of the Institute for Sea Fisheries, Hamburg). Mitt. Inst. Seefisch. 25: 1–20, [in German].

WILKENS, H. (1977): Die Typen der Ichthyologischen Sammlung des Zoologischen Instituts und Zoologischen Museums der Universität Hamburg (ZMH), Teil III (Ichthyological collection examples in the Zoological State Institute and Zoological Museum of the University of Hamburg (ZMH), Part III). Mitt. Hamb. Zool. Mus. Inst. 74: 155–163, [in German].

LADIGES, W. (1958): Typen von Kner und Steindachner aus dem Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg (Types from Kner and Steindachner from the Godeffroy Museum in Hamburg). Mitt. Hamb. Zool. Inst. 56: 169–171, [in German].

LADIGES, W., VON WAHLERT, G. & MOHR, E. (1958): Die Typen und Typoide der Fischsammlung des Hamburgischen Zoologischen Staatsinstituts und Zoologischen Museums (Types and typoids of the fish collection of the Zoological State Institute and Zoological Museum Hamburg). Mitt. Hamb. Zool. Inst. 56: 155–167, [in German].