The bryozoan collection of Prof. Dr Ehrhard Voigt (1905–2004) at the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt. Part 1 - Introduction and Cyclostomata

Abstract

The bryozoan collection of Prof. Dr Ehrhard Voigt (1905-2004) at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main, Germany is a world-renowned collection of great scientific value. It is the world's largest collection of fossil bryozoans from the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene and a unique archive documenting the evolution of this phylum of marine invertebrates during this time interval in the Boreal Chalk Sea that extended from the British Isles to the Aral Sea in Central Asia. The Voigt Collection contains over 300,000 specimens and was relocated to the Senckenberg Institute in 2005 according to the bequest of Ehrhard Voigt. As a result of a DFG-funded project, we present here a three-part type catalogue of the holotypes and neotypes of 256 bryozoan species in the Voigt Collection, of which this is Part 1. In total over the three parts, 247 species are re-illustrated but the name-bearing type specimens of 20 species are missing and no material could be found for 9 species. Two species, described as ctenostome bryozoans by Ehrhard Voigt, are questionable, while a further three 'ctenostome' species and one 'ctenostome' genus are considered as ichnotaxa.