Short Description
The collection Evertebrata varia of the Natural History Museum Vienna includes most invertebrate groups not represented in the several museum collections dedicated to the arthropods and molluscs. The collection is taxonomically very wide, from the more basal sponges, corals and ctenophores, all the way to the more divergent annelids, round worms and echinoderms, just to name a few. Actually comprising more than 20 collections dedicated to individual phyla (and a total of more than 30,000 specimens), the Evertebrata varia collection also houses the informal unicellular group of the “Protozoa” and the chordate subphylum Cephalochordata, making it the most taxonomically diverse of the zoological collections at the Natural History Museum Vienna. It is also mostly an international collection, with specimens originating from all over the world. Many of the invertebrate groups represented here are at least partially marine, and some groups, such as the ctenophores and echinoderms, are in fact exclusively marine. This means the collection is an open window to the marine realm, and therefore very unique for a landlocked country like Austria.
Contact Person
Dr. Pedro Frade
Research Services
Identification of animals (groups represented in the collection) possible upon request
Tissue samples for DNA analyses available for research projects with cooperation partners
Methods & Expertise for Research Infrastructure
Description (taxonomy), distribution analysis (biogeography), ecology (site requirements, reproduction, etc.) and systematics (species relationships) of corals. Phylogenetics, phylogenomics and integrated systematics are applied to explore coral biodiversity and evolutionary ecology, based on the extensive collections available and own new collections from the field. There is a particular focus on the role of microbial symbionts in coral adaptation and evolution.