Ichthyology Collection

The CeNak hosts the largest fish collection of Germany. The 260,000 cataloged specimens in this collection represent more than 8,000 fish species, which are about 25 % of all known fishes worldwide. The collection contains more than 1,300 type series from which about 42 % are primary types.

Valuable historical objects from former collections of Godeffroy and Bleeker also belong to the fish collection of the CeNak. The oldest specimens in the fish collection originate from 1838.     

 The fish collection is world-wide in coverage. Extensive and often used material of freshwater fishes stems from Europe, Asia and Africa as well as from South and Middle America. Marine fishes are mainly represented by lots from the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent waters, especially from the North and Baltic Seas. The collection comprises about two-thirds of all fish species known to occur in the Atlantic Ocean and holds also comprehensive material from the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

 Elasmobranchii, the second largest group in the fish collection, is represented with more than 2,650 lots. Approximately 7 % of the species represented in the fish collection are elasmobranchs. 93 % are actinopterygians, the largest group of fishes occurring in the fish collection.

 Elasmobranchii are mainly represented in the collection with the family Rajidae (more than 1,400 lots) whereas the family Myctophidae is a group of Actinopterygii with the highest number of catalogued lots (more than 4,800) in the collection.

 Numerous species in the collection are represented by several of their life history stages: eggs, larvae, juveniles, adults. A majority of the fish specimens is stored in a liquid preservative (mainly 70% ethanol) and maintained in glass jars or stainless steel tanks. The collection also contains some specimen fractions such as skin preparations, dried skeletons, skulls, jaws, scales and otoliths, as well as DNA samples, photographs, x-rays and related publications.

The basis of the collection originates from the former Natural History Museum in Hamburg. Initially low in numbers, in 1850 amounting to only 119 lots, the fish collection increased markedly during the second half of the 19th century. By the end of 1875 the number of registered lots was 550, surpassing the 4,400 mark in 1900. Expeditions exploring unknown habitats and territories were the main source of material during the first half of the 20th century. The first two decades of the 20th century marked a period of relatively rapid expansion in the number of fish species and specimens collected at the Natural History Museum, with about 11.1% of the material indexed in the collection database originating from 1901 to 1920. An estimated 14% of the holdings were destroyed during World War II. Much of the additional expansion derived from the 1993 takeover of more than 23,000 marine fish lots from the former ISH (Institut für Seefischerei, Hamburg) collection. In February 2008, the number of catalogued entries reached more than 45,600.

Among others, J. C. Godeffroy (1813–1885), E. Ehrenbaum (1861–1942), G. Duncker (1870–1953), E. Mohr (1894–1968) and W. Ladiges (1910–1984) contributed substantially to the development of various fish collections in Hamburg until the 1960s, when all collections were merged into the fish collection of the Zoological Museum Hamburg (ZMH). W. Ladiges, successor to G. Duncker, was curator of the fish collection from 1936 to 1974, with a pause from 1953 to 1957 when E. Mohr was curator. H. Wilkens, the fellow of W. Ladiges, was curator of the ZMH fish collection from 1974 to 2006. As of 2006 the fish collection is curated by R. Thiel.

Today a large amount of the holdings of the fish collection is digitalized, using our own MS Access database, and can be searched online under FishBase (www.fishbase.de).

Search Collection