(Museum of Natural History, University of Oregon, 1983-03) EATON, JOYCE; GUSTAFSON, ERIC PAUL
A published list of type specimens such as this
serves several purposes. First and foremost it is intended
to allow quick access to the type holdings
of a museum and to the basic information that is
present in the museum files. Secondly, it allows some
evaluation of the scientific value of a given collection.
This latter can be particularly significant in the case
of a collection such as that at the University of Oregon,
which is of considerable size (13th in the United
States in terms of total catalogued specimens of fossil
vertebrates as of 1977, according to Langston et al., 1978) but is off the beaten paths which in Vertebrate
Paleontology lead back and forth between California
and the northeastern states. We hope that this publication
will also serve as a biblographic introduction
to the widespread literature on fossil vertebrates from
Oregon. It certainly will not serve as a complete guide
to fossil vertebrate type specimens from the State of
Oregon; these are widespread in other collections
and only a small fraction of the taxonomic work on
the various fossil faunas had been done here.
