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The invertebrate collections of the Erebus and Terror Antarctic expedition; a missed opportunity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

J. Davenport  and
G.E. Fogg
J. Davenport
Affiliation:
School of Ocean Sciences (University College of North Wales), Marine Science Laboratories, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, Gwynedd LL59 5EY UK
G.E. Fogg
Affiliation:
School of Ocean Sciences (University College of North Wales), Marine Science Laboratories, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, Gwynedd LL59 5EY UK
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Abstract

Although at the time the zoological establishment had little interest in the smaller planktonic and benthic marine invertebrates, James Ross assisted by Joseph Hooker amassed a large collection of these animals during the Erebus and Terror voyage of 1839–43. These samples perished withoutRoss having carried out his intention of working on them. The only knownmaterial relating to them that survives today consists of a small number of drawings by Hooker in the British Museum (Natural History). These are evidently the remnants of a much larger collection which became dispersed among the experts preparing Challenger reports from 1876 onwards. Undoubtedly Ross and Hooker discovered many new species and genera (an example discussed being an apparently undescribed pycnogonid) which were left undescribed. Their finding of animal life at depths below 300 fathoms was not properly publicized so that Forbes' doctrine of the absence of life in the depths of the sea was able to persist for several more decades.

Type
Articles
Information
Polar Record , Volume 25 , Issue 155 , October 1989 , pp. 323 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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