Type Specimens at the University of Oregon: Fossil Vertebrates and Plants

Abstract

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.