Slug(-gish) science, or an annotated catalogue of the types of tropical vaginulid and agriolimacid pulmonates (Mollusca, Gastropoda), described by Heinrich Simroth (1851-1917), in the Natural History Museum Berlin

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, the teacher of natural history and professor of zoology in Leipzig Heinrich Simroth (1851-1917 was one of the best known German malacologists. In addition to his encyclopaedic work and important review on molluscs and gastropods in particular, Simroth made his name as an expert of air-breathing terrestrial, hermaphrodite slugs, or pulmonate land snails without shell. Being a life-long passion for him Simroth described a plethora of new taxa, but never established his own reference collection. Contrary to recent assumptions, though, that there is no Simroth collection, a total of 43 of his slug types, in particular of tropical vaginulids from South America (10), Africa (10) and SE Asia (6), as well as agriolimacids from Ethiopia and the Caucasus (14 þ 1) as well as palearctic limacids (2), were found to be extant in the Malacozoological collection at the Museum fçr Naturkunde in Berlin. Thus, out of 85 vaginulid taxa named by Simroth, the ZMB actually still holds a third of them. Evidently Simroth has returned the specimens to that institution where the material from expeditions and collections had been deposited and that had provided the basis for his description of new species. Here a catalogue is compiled, following a brief account on Simroth's life and scientific work, remarks on his vaginulid work and the origin of his material. Finally some general zoosystematic implications, e.g. as to overnaming and taxonomic redundancy, are discussed.

New species and records of terrestrial slugs from East Africa (Gastropoda, Urocyclidae, Veronicellidae, Agriolimacidae)

“…Van Goethem (1977) is indispensible for redescriptions, details of previous citations and type material of Urocyclidae ; note that most of Simroth’s types could not be found by Van Goethem, and have still not been found (e.g. in the collections at Berlin; Glaubrecht 2010 , Glaubrecht and Zorn 2012 ).…”

“…As with many of Simroth’s types, the types of A. puncatum are presumed lost ( Van Goethem 1977 , Glaubrecht 2010 , Glaubrecht and Zorn 2012 ). Verdcourt’s three-part biography of F. L. Stuhlmann ( Verdcourt 1988 , 1989a , b ) included a list of taxa collected by Stuhlmann that were possibly present in the Berlin collections in 1959.…”

“…However, in the list all the slug taxa described by Simroth were marked with a †, presumably indicating either that they were not seen in 1959, or that they were later discovered to be lost. Although some of the Stuhlmann–Simroth veronicellid slugs from this list have since been rediscovered in Berlin, none of the urocyclids have ( Glaubrecht 2010 ). Stuhlmann collected widely in East Africa, but spent several years (1903–1907) in the nearby East Usambaras as the director of the research station at Amani ( Verdcourt 1988 , 1989a , b ).…”