Description :
It consists of close to 2600 specimens, mostly dry, most of them well documented. They originate from all oceans and many seas, mainly collected in the 19th century. A vast majority (1700) are Scleractinia. The ca. 300 Alcyonacea have been revised in 2020 (V. Philippot)
Main collectors are, in alphabetical order: Louis Agassiz (a few specimens from american atlantic coasts, 1865), Ludwig Döderlein (Japanese coasts, 1880-1881), the Deutsche Tiefsee-Expedition (1898-1899), Hans Fruhstorfer (mainly Sulawesi end of 19th century), Ernst Gisselbrecht (Bergen 1909), Ernst Haeckel (Red Sea end of 19th century), Johan Maria Hildebrandt (Madagascar end of 19th century), Carl Benjamin Klunzinger (Red Sea, 1885), Willy Kükenthal (mainly Moluccas, end of 19th century), Alexandre Myèvre (Mediterranean, end of 19th century), Arnold Ortmann (Zanzibar, 1891), Richard Semon (Moluccas and Oceania, 1893), Alfred Voeltzkow (Zanzibar, around 1900), the Stazione Zoologica in Naples (end of 19th century) and of course some Natural History agencies such as Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg, Umlauff in Hamburg or Gustav Schneider in Basel.
Some 40 type specimens are proposed, many confirmed. Many of them are from the collects of Semon.
Link GBIF portal : https://www.gbif.org/dataset/0c2774bb-db06-45ba-b71c-501e5c077a4d
French Version
