Crustacean collection

The Crustacea collections are of international importance, containing significant historical material and recently collected specimens across all Orders.

Of international significance are collections associated with the renown Crustacea workers William Elford Leach, Adam White, John Robert Henderson, Charles Spence-Bate, Edward J. Miers, Rev. Terrance Rathcoe Read Stebbing, Alfred Merle Norman, Alfred O. Walker and Keppel Harcourt Barnard.

Notable collectors are Hermann von Maltzan and John Murray.

The collection includes material from Wilhelm de Haan, William Stimpson, Georg Ossian Sars, Wilhelm Liljeborg, Antonio Della Valle, James Wood-Mason and Alfred William Alcock thanks to exchange or gifts through the prolific and collegiate Victorian to Edwardian era.

Other significant ties, acquisitions and gifts:

• Smithsonian Institution, William Stimpson and Sidney Irving (S.I.) Smith.
• Indian Museum, Calcutta (1879-1903) via Wood-Mason, Anderson and Alcock.
• San Francisco circa 1879 via W.N. Lockington.
• material displayed at the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition (including China).
• Warsaw Museum ~1856 to 1879 collections (mainly of Stolzman and Jelski) Black Sea, Turkey, French Guiana and Peru
• Australian Museum circa 1885 and 1890 (BMNH 1885.22).
• Sarawak Museum ~1900 (coll. R. Shelford, via William Forster Lanchester), Malaysia; Siboga Expedition (1899 to 1900), mainly Cumacea ~20 lots.
• Lake Baikal, Russia.

Building on our collections amassed from around the world, recent acquisitions have come from Asia, the Gulf of Mexico, Antarctic hydrothermal vents, St Helena and the UK.

Specimen breakdown by major groupings

• Amphipoda: 29,000 (wet, dry, slides)
• Cirripedia: 58,000 (wet, dry, slides)
• Copepoda: 73,000 (wet, slides)
• Cumacea: 2,900 (wet, slides)
• Decapoda: 612,000 (wet, dry, slides)
• Isopoda: 110,000 (wet, dry, slides)
• Mysidacea: 56,000 (wet, dry, slides)
• Ostracoda: 58,000 (wet, slides)
• Stomatopoda: 3,400 (wet, slides)
• Tanaidacea: 2,100 (wet, slides)