Z dziejów Gabinetu Zoologicznego. Materiały z badań Azji Północnej i Wschodniej (1861–1889)

Iwan, Dariusz; Cegliński, Arkadiusz; Kowalski Hubert; Mierzwa-Szymkowiak, Dominika; Raś, Marcin; Wawer, Wioletta

doi:ISSN 0076-6372

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Title: Z dziejów Gabinetu Zoologicznego. Materiały z badań Azji Północnej i Wschodniej (1861–1889)

Abstract:

This year marks the 160th anniversary of the outbreak of the January Uprising, a great Polish national and patriotic insurrection, because of which nearly 20,000 actively fighting Poles were exiled deep into the Russian Empire. One of the convicts who served hard labor in Siberia was Benedykt Dybowski. Less than two years before the outbreak of the uprising, his scientific career found institutional support as he obtained a professor position at the Department of Zoology at the Main School in Warsaw. His participation in the uprising resulted in his arrest and sentence of 12 years of hard labor. While staying in Siberia, Dybowski organized a group of exiles around himself, including Wiktor Godlewski, Michał Jankowski, Alfons Parvex, and Władysław Ksi żopolski, who under his supervision con-ducted intensive research on the fauna of East and North Asia. Throughout his exile, Benedykt Dybowski has made enormous contributions to the development of biological sciences, especially zoology. For this reason, the present volume of “Memorabilia Zoologica” focuses on the collection of zoological specimens he obtained during his research in Siberia. Currently, these materials are preserved in the Zoological Collection of the Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. The content of this volume presents novel data on the scientific work of Siberian exiles and their connections with zoological institutions in Warsaw, such as the Zoological Cabinet and the Branicki Museum. However, a major part of the publication constitutes an extensive catalog of 19th-century scientific materials obtained by Benedykt Dybowski and his peers. The presented data was obtained directly from the original labels attached to the in-vestigated specimens. In particular, the presented list contains information on several thousand zoological specimens, including many descriptive types. Most of the included individuals were collected between 1861 and 1889, and represent arachnids, insects, mol-lusks, and birds. They originate mainly from the Transbaikal area, the “Amur and Ussuri Krai” (now Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krai), as well as Kamchatka and the Commander Islands. Furthermore, some extremely valuable materials were also collected on Sakhalin and Askold Islands, off the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk and Japan, in Mongolia, Korea, China, and Japan. The exploratory and scientific involvement of Polish zoologists had a huge impact on the global development of taxonomic and zoogeographic research in the discussed area of Asia.