Catalogue of the trilobites figured in Friedrich Schmidt's "Revision der ostbaltischen silurischen Trilobiten" (1881-1907)

In 1965, the senior author visited Leningrad with the express purpose of examining the bulk of the trilobite collection of Fr. Schmidt (1832-1908), thought to be kept in the Karpinsky Museum. Access to the collections was not possible on the grounds that it was "no longer in the museum, having been packed away as the result of World War II". This later turned out to be untrue and with the help of colleagues, specimens of interest were smuggled out of the collections, photographed, returned and later published (35 (*), pl. 35, fig.14; pl.36, figs. 1; 36, fig.2 A,B). In 1972, part of the collection was moved to the Central Scientific Research Geological Exploration Museum, Leningrad and to the Department of Historical Geology, University of Leningrad (A.M. Karpunin, letter to DLB 5/7/1994), while the remainder ended up in Moscow where today it is to be found in the museum of the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. There is no doubt that during this upheaval, certain specimens were mislaid or lost and today about 70% of the collection remains available for study. It is well curated, a great tribute to Russian colleagues who have cared for it so well under extremely difficult conditions.

The object of our work was to examine collections in Moscow and St. Petersburg, produce and publish this computer catalogue of the Schmidt collection, to exchange data files with Russian colleagues and to photograph specimens for future reference and research. For the present, photographs of all specimens illustrated in the Schmidt monographic Vols. I, II, IV and a selection from Vol. III but not Vol. V are archived at the Natural History Museum, Oslo.

Since the original catalogue was published in 1997, additional specimens have been found and photographed in Estonia and Germany. For this we wish to acknowledge the help provided by Drs. Linda Hints and Helje Parnäste in Tallinn and Dr. R. Thomas Becker, Museum of Natural History, Humboldt University, Berlin.