The Kähsbauer-Donationen from Vienna

Section Ichthyology

SCHINDLER’s efforts to re-build the ZSM ichthyological collection led him to Vienna, where he received historical material as “Geschenk” [donation]. Here to mention are especially the so called “Kähsbauer donations”, which SCHINDLER received from the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien [Vienna]. KÄHSBAUER, the former ichthyological curator of NMW, spread during his curatorship historical material of the Vienna collection as donations throughout European collections, including type material. Two smaller collections of NMW material were transferred to Munich by SCHINDLER already in 1952, while the bulk of NMW material reached Munich obviously in April 1953. These donations included material collected by AGASSIZ during the THAYER and HASSLER expeditions, but also specimens from his late STEINDACHNER on his late expedition to Brazil in 1903, material collected by HASEMAN during his expedition to the Rio Negro and upper course of the Rio Branco, and specimens which the NATTERER brothers collected on the Amazon.

Vice versa, it is evident that there was a considerable exchange of specimens between the ZSM and NMW collections in the late 19th and early 20th century, i.e. material of the MORITZ WAGNER Collection and fishes PRINCESS THERESE VON BAYERN collected from Middle and South America. Kner (1863) and Steindachner (1894, 1895, 1900 and 1902) described 34 new species from these two collections. For this purpose, both collections have been transferred to Vienna, the first by VON SIEBOLD (KNER, 1864), the later by PRINCESS THERESE VON BAYERN (1902) herself. From this material few doublets have been exchanged with NMW (which are still available in the Vienna collection). The bulk of both collections however was returned by STEINDACHNER and has been available in the early ZSM collection but was lost in World War II.