The Invertebrate Palaeontology Collection comprises more than four million fossil specimens, mainly from Victoria and Australia but also from other parts of the world. It documents the evolution of invertebrates, ranging from single-celled organisms through to the many phyla of multi-celled animals, and includes many extinct groups such as trilobites, graptolites and conodonts. It covers the past 630 million years of invertebrate evolution.
The collection is subdivided into four major collections: the type and figured, taxonomic, graptolite and stratigraphic collections. It includes representative specimens of nearly all major extinct phyla of organisms and is crucial to understanding the biostratigraphic zonation, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of organisms and the evolution of their environments in southern Australia.
The collection incorporates the former invertebrate fossil collections of the University of Melbourne and the Geological Survey of Victoria, making it one of the largest collections of its type in Australia and the most important scientifically in a number of areas. Collection strengths include graptolites, Silurian and Devonian shelly fossils (including trilobites and echinoderms), Cretaceous insects, and Tertiary fossils.
Type specimen of the fossil barnacle Scalpellum simplex.
Source: Museum Victoria
Darwin's barnacles
In 1863, Frederick McCoy, the first director of Museum Victoria (then known as the National Museum of History and Geology) bought a collection of fossils from German fossil dealer August Krantz for the museum, including type specimens described and illustrated by Charles Darwin in his monographs about living and fossil barnacles.
MV Blog: Happy Darwin Day
Rhabdinopora scitulum, an Ordovician period graptolite from Victoria.
Source: Museum Victoria
Graptolites
Graptolites are a group of extinct colonial hemichordates that floated in Palaeozoic seas or were attached to the sea floor. They have a superb fossil record in Victoria and have been of critical importance in determining the relative ages of rock sequences (by biostratigraphic zonations) within the state.
The graptolite collection contains over 150 000 specimens and is by far the largest and scientifically most important in Australia, containing the greatest diversity of species. This is largely a consequence of the fact that the most important graptolite-bearing Ordovician rock sequences occur in Victoria, and that it was in this state that the Australian subdivision of the Ordovician into nine stages and 32 graptolite zones and subzones was developed.
These graptolite zones have wide application outside Australia, including New Zealand, North America and China. The museum’s graptolite collection is thus of international significance.
Gastropod Tenagodus occlusus from the FA Cudmore collection.
Image: Rodney Start
Source: Museum Victoria
Mollusc fossils
The museum holds significant numbers of fossilised molluscs, including;
- Frank Cudmore’s large collection of Tertiary fossils from south-eastern Australia, donated in 1937
- GB Pritchard’s Tertiary mollusc types from Victoria, Mesozoic molluscs from England collected by Robert Damon and his son RF Damon of Weymouth, purchased from 1861 to 1899.
- Specimens from Professor John Morris’s collection of Cretaceous and Tertiary fossils, mostly molluscs, from England. Some of these specimens were described by Darwin, Sharpe and Davidson.
Holotype specimen of the graptolite Clonograptus persistens.
Image: Rodney Start
Source: Museum Victoria
Type and Figured Collection
The Type and Figured Collection encompasses more than 16 000 published specimens. It includes 3500 primary types (holotypes, neotypes, lectotypes), 5400 secondary types (paratypes, paralectotypes), and 6300 figured specimens.
These specimens are based on more than 700 research publications from 1851 to the present day, authored by museum staff and external researchers.
Held separately from the rest of the Invertebrate Palaeontology collection, it is housed in a climate-controlled (temperature and humidity) storage room in 31 metal cabinets. Specimens are arranged by date of first publication and are clearly labelled with their type status.
Type specimens are generally not used for display as they must be easily accessible to researchers. The museum has an international obligation to preserve type and figured material and make it accessible for researchers.
Coral fossils on display in the 600 Million Years: Victoria evolves exhibition at Melbourne Museum.
Image: Ben Healley
Source: Museum Victoria
Development and exhibition of the collection
This collection is actively curated and regularly accessed by researchers and students from Australian and overseas institutions, and is a valuable resource for development of exhibitions and public programs for Museum Victoria.
600 Million Years: Victoria evolves exhibition