| Name | Marine molluscs collection of the family Nassariidae |
| Alternative name | MCNB. Col. Nassariidae |
| Cite as | Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona (MCNB). Marine molluscs collection of the family Nassariidae MCNB. Col. Nassariidae |
| Description | Collection of marine molluscs belonging to the family Nassariidae, consisting of dry shells (except for three lots preserved in 70% ethanol). It contains 15 700 examples, grouped into 1460 lots and belonging to 125 species. It also includes four type specimens belonging to two species. All of the collection has been revised by the specialist Carles Gili. In terms of number, the most important group in the collection is the genus Nassarius (almost 90% of lots), followed at some distance by the Cyclope and the remaining genera. Most of the material originates from the Museum’s historical collection (founder collection of Francesc Martorell and private collections of Artur Bofill, Joan Baptista d'Aguilar-Amat, Joan Rosals, the Royal Academy of the Science and the Arts of Barcelona, Manuel de Chía, Baltasar Serradell and the Jaume Balmes Institute, amongst others). More recent donations include material from the collections of Luis Gasull Martínez and Joan Rosal Sagalés. The whole collection has been registered, documented and digitalized to specimen lot level. Data from a part of the collection (currently only a small part) can be consulted on-line at the website of the Barcelona Natural History Museum and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility website. |
| Provenance | The oldest samples correspond to the shell collection of Francesc Martorell i Peña, which was part of the founder collection of the Martorell Museum (1879). The collections of Antoni de Samà, Artur Bofill, Joan Baptista d'Aguilar-Amat and Joan Rosals, which led to a notable increase in the number of samples in the period 1914–1920, contain a large number of samples from the Nassariidae. To these can be added the material from other important historical collections that was added subsequently such as that of the Royal Academy of the Science and the Arts of Barcelona (held in deposit since 1925) and the collections of Manuel de Chía (1923), Baltasar Serradell (1931) and the Jaume Balmes Institute (1936). The Royal Academy’s collection includes, amongst others, specimens collected by Eduard and Adolf Cháquert, Eduard Fontseré, Eusebi Mas, José María Salvañá and Jaume Basté. Under the direction Artur Bofill i Poch (1891–1929) and then Joan Baptista d’Aguilar-Amat (1929–1936), the Museum’s malacological section was reorganized: the collections were combined and the nomenclature revised, but the original labels were conserved. Francesc Uribe has been the curator of the Department of Non-Arthropod Invertebrates since 1997 and since then the inventory and digitalization of the Museum’s whole collection has been carried out to specimen lot level. The collection was exhaustively revised by the specialist and Museum collaborator Carles Gili in 2013–2014. Types of two species described by this autor are housed in the colection. |
