Bloch's fish collection in the Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin: an illustrated catalog and historical account

Abstract

This book is a comprehensive study of the fishes in the collections of the great German ichthyologist Marcus Elieser Bloch, now deposited in the Museum für Naturkunde (Humboldt Universität, Berlin; ZMB). It was motivated by the celebration of the 200 th anniversary of Bloch's death, in 1999. The aim is to provide useful information on the specimens upon which Bloch based his publications. Such initiatives are welcome, for they provide important historical information that would otherwise be inaccessible to the specialist. The book is organized into 8 chapters starting with a brief introduction in which the author justifies the need for such a catalog, and compares his effort with other recent publications dealing with Bloch's fishes: Eschmeyer's (1998) 'Catalog of fishes', and Veldhuijzen van Zanten & Isbrücker's (1997) 'Bloch's Fishes Revisited'. The latter was based on illustrations included in Bloch's publications and not from the specimens themselves. Eschmeyer's publication includes much information on Bloch's specimens. However, that study was of a far broader scope, and could not deal with many of the details that only a concentrated effort can do. Paepke's book reviews and corrects information included in Eschmeyer's Catalog and adds data on recently rediscovered material from Bloch's collection. Chapters 2 and 3 are subdivided into short sections each dealing with a specific topic concerning Bloch's life, work, and general remarks on his fish collection. This is an efficient way to organize the information, and allows the reader to easily locate the relevant information. Those sections make enjoyable reading, offering accurate historical information. Chapter 2 includes four sections: 1) 'Bloch's life'; 2) 'Bloch's cabinet of natural objects'; 3) 'Bloch's ichthyological publications'; and 4) 'The significance of Bloch's scientific work for ichthyology'. The sections included in Chapter 3 are: 1) 'Fate of the collection after Bloch's death'; 2) 'Sources' (about people who provided Bloch with fish specimens from different regions of the world'; 3) 'Regions of origin, localities; 4) 'Repeated descriptions'; 5) 'Unnoticed new species'; 6) 'Preservation techniques'; 7) 'Collection documentation'; 8) 'The present revision of the collection'; 9) 'Numbers of specimens'; and 10) 'Explanation of the catalog'. Sections 8 and 10 provide explanation on the preparation and organization of the book. Chapter 4 includes the main portion of the book, the catalog of all of Bloch's specimens that have been deposited in ZMB since 1860. It includes approximately 790 specimens