Catálogo razonado de los vertebrados fósiles de España del Museo de Geología de Barcelona (1882-1982)

Abstract

Reasoned catalogue of the Spanish fossil vertebrates in the Museo de GeologIa de Barcelona (1882-1982)

The present catalogue represents the beginning of a research line dealing with the historical materials deposited in the Natural History Museums, and specially devoted to the study of the fossil vertebrates from Spain and the French Catalonia acquired by the Museo de GeologIa de Barcelona (MGB), Spain, between 1882 and 1982. The author catalogues the fossil register of 134 fossil sites, with a total of 1.02 1 corporal units including 24 types and 80 figured specimens, 10 units resulting from organic activity, 3 of them figured, and 89 replicas or historical casts, 5 of them figured. For this purpose, both known and unpublished palaeontological, historical, museological and administrative documental sources are set and their content is analysed and discussed; the sites are critically regrouped; a chronological and historical register of the catalogued materials is built; an alphabetical inventory of suppliers is made; unknown or very poorly known materials are recovered; a basic terminology is established ; the diverse systems of numbering, registration, marking and labelling used on the specimens all along their history are reconstructed, discussing them and proposing rules for the documentation of the catalogued materials and the transcription of the quotations concerning them; comments the main collections and their history, the sites represented by each one with details about the units and type and figured specimens they include. Finally, the author develops a standard site card where the history of the discoveries is reconstructed, sets how the materials arrived to the MGB and catalogues them critically according to their palaeontological, museological, patrimonial and historical interest.