Page Contents: Section | Significance | Background | Location & Dates | Taxonomic Contents | Documentation | Description of Collection | Collection Inventory | Collection Assets
Tomales Bay-Pitelka 1940s
Section Responsible for Processing
MBC
Significance
A small collection of polychaetes taken from Tomales Bay, California and surrounding areas. Many of Dr. Olga Hartman’s publications included worms from this collection. Several new species were found and described.
Background
Dr. Frank A. Pitelka was an ornithologist who spent his entire career at the University of California, Berkeley. While a graduate student there in the early 1940s he participated in mapping and sampling soft-bottom invertebrate communities of intertidal flats in Tomales Bay and nearby sites, central California. Understanding ecological succession, community organization, and ecological distribution were the focus of the study. The polychaetes he collected were sent to Dr. Hartman for identification and retained by her for the AHF Polychaete Collection.
Collection Location and Dates
Tomales Bay, Stemple Creek Estuary, and Bolinas Bay, California. Primarily 1941-1942.
Taxonomic Contents
Polychaetes.
Documentation
Hartman’s AHF N-Catalogue held by the Polychaete Section.
Description of Collection
Wet preserved collection. Samples originally fixed in 5-10% formalin, later rinsed in fresh water and transferred into 70% ethanol.
Collection Inventory
None at present; probably several hundred specimens or lots. Information in the AHF N-Catalogue will eventually be compiled into a single spreadsheet.
Collection Assets
No collection assets available.