Dear all,
This is terrible news for Brazilian natural sciences. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/fire-engulfs-brazil-national-museum-rio
Photos indicate total destruction by fire of the Rio de Janeiro 200-year-old National Museum on Sunday, 2 September 2018. I've seen amazing photos of museum people coming from the burning building rescuing collection items - so brave of them. We can only hope some or a lot of the biology collections will have been warehoused elsewhere, as museums tend to do for space reasons. If you know more about this aspect please update us.
And ... "Museum officials and firefighters were able to salvage part of the collection, removed before being hit by fire. One of the saved parts was the collection of types of malacology" How accurate this claim is I don't know.
From: https://noticias.uol.com.br/ultimas-noticias/agencia-estado/2018/09/02/predio-do-museu-nacional-nao-corre-risco-de-desabar-segundo-os-bombeiros.htm
Just as a tiny indication of the possible loss here are the Brazil MN Polychaeta holotypes we have actually data-entered at WoRMS. It's probably only recent registrations.
Holotype MN 23384, locality Rio Grande do Sul, identified as Hyalella imbya Rodrigues & Bueno, 2012
Holotype MN MHN-BPO 14/0, identified as Kirkia heterobranchiata Nogueira, López & Rossi, 2004
Holotype MN MN 9571-Ia,, locality Palmeira, identified as Annulitubus mutveii Vinn, Zabini, Sene-Silva, Kirsimae & Susan-Marcos, 2016
Holotype MN MNRJ 5859, locality Brazil Southeast, identified as Arturia alcatraziensis (Lanna, Rossi, Cavalcanti, Hajdu & Klautau, 2007)
Holotype MN MNRJ/P455, locality Campos Basin, identified as Lacydonia anapaulae Rizzo, Magalhães & Santos, 2016
Holotype MN MNRJ/P456, locality Campos Basin, identified as Lacydonia braziliensis Rizzo, Magalhães & Santos, 2016
Holotype MN MNRJ/P457, locality Campos Basin, identified as Lacydonia jacki Rizzo, Magalhães & Santos, 2016
Holotype MN MNRJ/P771, locality Pará, identified as Namalycastis caetensis Alves & Santos, 2016
Geoff Read
