Preservation Type
Sample Fluid Preserved, Sample Skeletonized, Storage Indoors, Sample Dried
Description
The museum's ichthyological collection includes nea 40,000 specimens, mostly preserved in ethanol; only a few specimens are dry preparations, while others are only represented by some skeletal structures (e.g. the jaws of some shark species). The most important nucleus of the collection consists of specimens already forming part of the "Central collection of Italian Vertebrates" established by Enrico Hillyer Giglioli (1845-1909). The italian material dating to the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century is scientifically very important, since it provides a detailed view of the Tuscan and Italian fish fauna before the massive introduction of alien species starting in the first decades of the 1900s. Other important parts of the ichthyological collection are the material collected by Captain Gaetano Chierchia (1850-1922), purchased in 1910 and mainly including marine species from tropical and subtropical Asia and South America, and the material resulting from the numerous scientific missions in Somalia carried out until relatively recent times by museum personnel together with researchers from the Institute of Zoology of the University and the Centre for the Study of tropical Faunas and Ecology of the Italian national Research Council (CNR). Also important are the many type specimens: they represent 42 taxa (41 actinopterygians and 1 elasmobranch), more than half of which are still considered valid. Many specimens are noteworthy on account of their rarity and their morphological, biological or historical peculiarity. The collection contains numerous interesting specimens of Italian abyssal fishes, many of them collected by Enrico Hillyer Giglioli.
Taxonomic Coverage
Chondrichthyes, Myxini, Osteichthyes, Petromyzonti
Purposes
This is a sub-collection of https://registry.gbif.org/collection/7856d07e-2e9b-4b56-a524-c2e1b830e40a. The cataloging of specimens is partial (Vanni 1991, 1992, 1993; Bernini & Vanni 1996; Nocita & Vanni 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002). Information updated thanks to the internal University of Florence Museal System (UNIFI-SMA) digitization dashboard, compiled in October 2021.
