The Berlin collection (ZMB) is one of the important malacolgical sources for type material within Europe. Thanks to a SYNTHESYS grant I was able to work for two weeks in the collection. The result? A whole bunch of as yet undocumented types, supplementary to the annotated catalogue published by Frank K??hler in 2007.
Although I focussed mainly on the Odontostomidae, Placostylidae and Orthalicidae, also types from a substantial number of taxa belonging to the Bulimulidae were found.
My preliminary counts are as follows (including the ones listed by K??hler):
Amphibulimidae – 17
Bulimulidae – 151
Odontostomidae – 24
Placostylidae – 14
Orthalicidae – 37
Total for the Orthalicoidea: 243.
Compare this for instance with the listing of Neubert & Janssen (2004) for the Senckenberg collection (SMF):
If we discount the ‘Originalserien’ (which I haven’t taken into account for ZMB), both collections are about equal size.
I still have to tally the different categories, but that’s ‘food for connoisseurs’. However, neither of the two collections can rival with London (about 650 taxa represented in my listings).
