JOINT HAECKEL and EHRENBERG PROJECT: Reexamination of the Haeckel and Ehrenberg Microfossil Collections
as a Historical and Scientific Legacy, edited by Y. Tanimura and Y. Aita, pp. 47–54. National Museum of Nature andScience Monographs, No. 40, Tokyo 2009

Haeckel’s Messina Radiolarian Collection Housed in the
Ernst-Haeckel-Haus
Toyosaburo Sakai1, Noritoshi Suzuki2, Kaoru Ogane2,
David Lazarus3, Olaf Breidbach4 and Thomas Bach4
1

Department of Geology, Faculty of Agriculture, Utsunomiya University, Utsunomiya 321–8505, Japan
2
Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University,
6–3 Aoba Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980–8578, Japan
3
Museum für Naturkunde, Humboldt University, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
4
Ernst-Haeckel-Haus, Berggasse 7, 07745 Jena, Germany
Corresponding Author: Toyosaburo Sakai (e-mail: toyo.s.sakai@nifty.ne.jp)

Abstract Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–1919) published 59 new polycystine radiolarian species from Messina in 1860 and 1862. The scientific community has long been unaware thatthe original slides examined by him are deposited in the Ernst-Haeckel Haus in Jena, Germany. In addition to a few radiolarian microscopic slides from the H.M.S. Challenger Voyage, the collections of
the Ernst-Haeckel Haus keeps two wooden boxes labeled as “Messina 1859.” Reexamination of theseremaining 74 glass slides reveals that Haeckel generally picked and mounted single specimens oneach slide with Canada balsam. He examined the internal structure of some species, including Spongosphaera streptacantha and Rhizosphaera trigonacantha, by artificial breakage of the single specimens. We found 16 species described by Haeckel and one species named by Müller from the slides inthe two Messina boxes. All the specimens in these boxes are illustrated in our paper, together with theoriginal slides and boxes. Further examination of his original slides and other materials in universities
and museums is still needed for taxonomic stability.
Key words:

Classification, Haeckel, Legacy Collection, Radiolaria, Taxonomy.

Introduction
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–1919) was a great radiolarian specialist who
constructed the first comprehensive framework for radiolarian taxonomy. Haeckel (1860a, 1860b,
1862, 1878, 1879, 1882, 1884, 1887a) reported approximately 750 genera and 4,300 species(Tanimura et al., 2006), which are now classified into the orders Acantharia, Collodaria, Nassellaria, Spumellaria, and Phaeodaria (Anderson, 1983; Suzuki and Aita, submitted). Haeckel summarized his taxonomic work in 1887 (Haeckel, 1887b). His work, however, started with studies
on plankton samples from the Mediterranean Sea near Messina, and the results were mainly published in the early 1860s (Haeckel, 1860a, 1860b, 1862). Haeckel (1862) is one of the literature’s
first, and still most extensively documented, presenter of systematic radiolarian cytology linked
to skeletal morphology, with voluminous explanations and beautiful color plates.
Haeckel’s work has been followed in many subsequent studies, but the illustrated figures arecommonly too schematic to apply to actual specimens (e.g., Suzuki and Aita, submitted). For
proper use of Haeckel’s species, reexamination of the actual original material is essential. This

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reexamination is intended to lead to the next step in taxonomic revision: if the type specimens, or
his examined specimens, are found, the morphological characters of his species can be clearly
understood. If his examined specimens are not found, neotypes could be selected from the topoor topotypic materials, or his species can be permanently deleted from available taxonomic
names under the International Code of the Zoological Nomenclature 2000.
Since the existence of Haeckel’s Messina radiolarian collection has only recently been discovered (Lazarus, 2000), this study is the first substantial reexamination by radiolarian taxonomists of this important original collection in the Ernst-Haeckel Haus in Jena, Germany.
Radiolarian Collection in the Ernst-Haeckel Haus
Since 1919, the Ernst-Haeckel Haus, formerly Haeckel’s home, has maintained his personalarchives, which include some of the radiolarian material he used for his studies. It is now theInstitute for the History of Science and a museum at the university in Jena (http://www.ehh.
uni-jena.de).
The Ernst-Haeckel Haus houses a large number of Haeckel’s scientific objects. Scientificobjects related to radiolarians include his microscopic slides for his own study, those for teaching, his notebooks used to review the radiolarians illustrated in Ehrenberg’s papers, study notes,
letters, diaries, and the original drawings by Haeckel marked with what appear to be serial numbers. In addition, a suite of artistic furniture with radiolarian fine art motifs remains in the ErnstHaeckel Haus. The Japanese members of this project had only a few hours to examine these collections, so we concentrated on the Messina microscopic slides for study. The other microscopic
slide set is less unique, being one of many “teaching sets,” and the same sets were distributed in
London, Berlin, and Basel. This teaching set was not as high a priority in this project in that thisset is presumed not to have as high a status for type fixation as the original topotype material.
Results
Two wooden slide boxes, labeled “Radiolaria I. Messina. 1859” (Pl. 10, Fig. 4) and “Radiolaria II. Messina. 1859” (Pl. 23, Fig. 5) are archived in the Jena museum. These two boxes contain 74 radiolarian slides for which Haeckel prepared labels with the species, locality, and slide
codes in his own handwriting. Our paper presents all the slides with radiolarians in Plates 1 to 23.
Seventeen polycystine, 2 acantharian, and 2 phaeodarian species are preserved in these twoboxes.
The radiolarian slides in these two boxes are made of standard glass microscope slides, but
the coverslips are very thick and irregularly chipped (e.g., Pl. 1, Fig. 7). Each slide generally contains a single radiolarian specimen embedded with Canada balsam. The location of the specimen
in the slide is indicated by the sharp tip of the black arrow (probably tar) painted on the slide(e.g., Pl. 4, Figs. 7, 8) or is within an open circle marked by the same black tar (Pl. 9, Fig. 2).
Several slides with the term “diruta,” meaning “broken” in Latin, include crushed specimens (Pl.
3, Figs. 6, 8; Pl. 14, Figs. 1, 2; Pl. 20, Figs. 7, 8; Pl. 22, Figs. 3, 4), which we presume werecrushed by Haeckel for examination of the internal structures. The labels of several slides include
a code with “R” (e.g., Pl. 2, Fig. 5), probably “Radiolarian.” These labels also indicate several abbreviations: exclamation points “!” (Pl. 1, Fig. 9), “!!” (Pl. 1, Fig. 9), numbers like “49” (Pl. 1,
Fig. 9), locality names, individual letters like “b” (Pl. 2, Fig. 5), and comments (Pl. 5, Fig. 3; Pl.
6, Fig. 4). Only a few indications can be understood based on the limited number of slides.

Haeckel’s Messina Radiolarian Collection

49

Exclamation points were often used by early workers, including Ehrenberg, to denote particularlyinteresting specimens, and are thus a useful guide to identifying possible type specimens. Someof the numbers seem to refer to species: for example, the number “33” seems to have been used
for Spongosphaera streptacantha (Pl. 3, Fig. 9; Pl. 7, Fig. 2; Pl. 13, Fig. 6), “54” for Euchitonia
muelleri (Pl. 4, Fig. 7; Pl. 21, Figs. 2, 6), and “69” for Collosphaera huxleyi (Pl. 3, Fig. 1; Pl. 6,
Fig. 4; Pl. 8, Fig. 3; Pl. 10, Fig. 3; Pl. 13, Fig. 4). The indication “j” in Pl. 18, Fig. 6 seems to correspond to “juvenile.”
Several specimens preserve the protoplasm (Pl. 1, Figs. 5, 8; Pl. 3, Fig. 10; Pl. 6, Fig. 1; Pl. 8,
Figs. 1, 2; Pl. 11, Fig. 8; Pl. 12, Figs. 4, 5; Pl. 13, Fig. 8; Pl. 14, Figs. 1, 8; Pl. 17, Fig. 1; Pl. 19,
Figs. 1, 3; Pl. 20, Fig. 4; Pl. 22, Fig. 1). “Central capsules” are present in Collosphaera huxleyi(Pl. 13, Figs. 3, 4), Rhizosphaera trigonacantha (Pl. 17, Figs. 1, 2), and Rhopalastrum truncatum(Pl. 9, Figs. 3, 4) according to the indication on the slide label: “cum capsule centrale.”Concluding remarks
Haeckel (1860a, 1862) described 30 and 29 polycystine radiolarians from Messina, respectively. We found only 16 of Haeckel’s species, and one species described by Müller (1858b), sothat 43 species are missing. The missing species also include the type species of some genera(e.g., Haliomma trinacrium Haeckel for the genus Actinomma [Haeckel, 1860a]). Although it isstill possible that further original material may be found of this Messina material, it is unlikely(see Lazarus and Suzuki, 2009) and for practical purposes these specimens should be assumed to
be lost.
Since Haeckel (1887a) separated specimens of different ontogenetic stages of what is now
considered to be a single species into different genera, he was thought to have generally ignored
ontogenetic growth. However, he identified specimens with different numbers of hoops as belonging to the same species in Rhopalastrum truncatum (Pl. 1, Figs. 2, 4, 10) and Stylodictyaarachnia (Pl. 2, Fig. 4; Pl. 5, Fig. 1; Pl. 9, Fig. 8), and individuals with different patagium developmental states as belonging to the same species for Euchitonia muelleri (Pl. 18, Fig. 4; Pl. 20,
Fig. 1; Pl. 21, Figs. 1, 5, 6), suggesting his recognition of ontogenetic growth for at least thesethree species.
Taxonomic noteThis taxonomic note simply summarizes, presents material, and provides information for
Haeckel’s descriptions. Taxonomic reexamination of these Messina species will be published in
the future. Plates and figures in our paper are arranged in the order of the microscopic slides in
the Messina boxes, rather than taxonomic order. Phaeodaria has now been moved from “Radiolaria” to Cercozoa based on molecular phylogenetic analyses (Adl et al., 2005; Suzuki and Aita,
submitted), but this issue is beyond the scope of this paper. Thus, this taxonomic note includes allof the traditional “Radiolaria.”
Order Spumellaria Ehrenberg, 1876
Actinomma drymodes (Haeckel 1860a)
Pl. 5, Fig. 4
1860a Haliomma (Actinomma) drymodes n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 816
1862 Actinomma drymodes (Haeckel) –HAECKEL, p. 442–443, pl. 24, fig. 9

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1887a Hexacontium (Hexacontura) drymodes (Haeckel)–HAECKEL, p. 198–199

Coccodiscus darwinii Haeckel 1862
Pl. 1, Fig. 5, Pl. 7, Fig. 41862 Coccodiscus darwinii n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 486–488, pl. 28, figs. 11, 12
1887a Coccodiscus darwinii Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 461

Collosphaera huxleyi Müller 1858b
Pl. 3, Figs. 1–3, Pl. 6, Figs. 1–3, Pl. 8, Figs. 1, 2, Pl. 10, Figs. 1, 2, Pl. 13, Fig. 31858b Collosphaera huxleyi n. sp. –MÜLLER, p. 55–59, pl. 8, figs. 6–9
1862 Collosphaera huxleyi Müller –HAECKEL, p. 534–536, pl. 34, figs. 1, 2, 4, 6–8, 10, 11
1878 Collosphaera huxleyi Müller –HAECKEL, p. 42, fig. 27
1887a Collosphaera (Dyscollosphaera) huxleyi Müller –HAECKEL, p. 96

Collosphaera spinosa Haeckel 1860a
Pl. 8, Figs. 4, 5, Pl. 15, Figs. 1–4
1860a Collosphaera spinosa n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 845
1862 Collosphaera spinosa Haeckel – HAECKEL, p. 536, pl. 34, figs. 12, 13
1878 Collosphaera spinosa Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 41, fig. 28
1887a Acrosphaera spinosa (Haeckel) –HAECKEL, p. 100

Collosphaera sp.
Pl. 6, Fig. 8

Euchitonia gegenbauri Haeckel 1862
Pl. 12, Fig. 1
1862 Euchitonia gegenbauri n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 506–507, pl. 31, figs. 2, 3
1887a Trigonastrum (Trigonastrella) gegenbauri (Haeckel) –HAECKEL, p. 539

Euchitonia muelleri Haeckel 1862
Pl. 4, Fig. 8, Pl. 18, Fig. 4, Pl. 20, Fig. 1, Pl. 21, Figs. 1, 5, 7
1862 Euchitonia muelleri n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 508, pl. 30, figs. 5–10
1887a Euchitonia (Stylactis) furcata Ehrenberg –HAECKEL, p. 532–533

Euchitonia virchowii Haeckel 1862
Pl. 18, Fig. 51862 Euchitonia virchowii n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 503–505, pl. 30, figs. 1–4
1887a Euchitonia (Stylactis) virchowii Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 535

Haeckel’s Messina Radiolarian Collection

Euchitonia sp.
Pl. 11, Fig. 3

Haliomma capillaceum Haeckel 1860aPl. 2, Figs. 2, 6, Pl. 23, Fig. 4
1860a Haliomma (Haliomma) capillaceum n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 814
1862 Haliomma capillaceum Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 426, pl. 23, fig. 2
1887a Haliomma (Haliommilla) capillaceum Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 236

Haliomma castanea Haeckel 1860aPl. 21, Fig. 3
1860a Haliomma (Haliomma) castanea n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 815
1862 Haliomma castanea Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 428–429, pl. 24, fig. 4
1887a Haliomma (Haliommantha) castanea Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 232

Haliomma erinaceus Haeckel 1860a
Pl. 4, Fig. 4, Pl. 9, Fig. 5, Pl. 16, Figs. 1–3
1860a Haliomma (Haliomma) erinaceum n. sp. -–HAECKEL, p. 814
1862 Haliomma erinaceus Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 427, pl. 23, figs. 3, 4
1887a Haliomma (Haliommilla) erinaceum Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 236

Heliodiscus sp.
Pl. 13, Fig. 2

Hymeniastrum sp.
Pl. 6, Fig. 9

Ommatospyris sp.
Pl. 20, Figs. 4, 5

Rhizosphaera leptomita Haeckel 1860aPl. 18, Fig. 1
1860a Rhizosphaera leptomita n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 840
1862 Rhizosphaera leptomita Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 453–454, pl. 25, figs. 8–10
1887a Rhizosphaera leptomita Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 284

Rhizosphaera trigonacantha Haeckel 1860a
Pl. 6, Fig. 6, Pl. 13, Fig. 8, Pl. 14, Figs. 1, 4, Pl. 14, Fig. 8, Pl. 15, Fig. 7, Pl. 17, Figs. 1, 4, 6, Pl. 20, Fig. 7
1860a Rhizosphaera trigonacantha n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 840

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1862 Rhizosphaera trigonacantha Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 452–453, pl. 25, figs. 1–7
1887a Rhizosphaera trigonacantha Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 283–284

Rhopalastrum truncatum Haeckel 1860aPl. 1, Figs. 2, 4, 10, Pl. 4, Fig. 1, Pl. 9, Fig. 3
1860a Rhopalastrum truncatum n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 842
1862 Rhopalastrum truncatum Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 500–501, pl. 29, fig. 6
1887a Rhopalastrum (Rhopalastrella) truncatum Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 526–527

Sponchelius sp. [nomen nudum for genus]
Pl. 22, Fig. 6

Spongosphaera streptacantha Haeckel 1860apl. 1, fig. 8, pl. 3, fig. 10, pl. 7, fig. 1, pl. 8, fig. 8, pl. 11, fig. 4, pl. 13, fig. 5, pl. 22, fig. 1
1860a Spongosphaera streptacantha n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 840–841
1862 Spongosphaera streptacantha Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 455–456, pl. 26, figs. 1–3
1878 Spongosphaera streptacantha Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 46, fig. 34
1887a Spongosphaera streptacantha Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 282

Spongosphaera sp.
Pl. 3, Fig. 6, Pl. 22, Fig. 4

Stylodictya arachnia Müller 1858bPl. 2, Fig. 4, Pl. 5, Fig. 1, Pl. 9, Fig. 8, Pl. 11, Fig. 5, Pl. 23, Fig. 1
1858b Stylodictya arachnia n. sp. –MÜLLER, p. 41, pl. 1, figs. 8, 91862 Stylodictya arachnia Müller –HAECKEL, p. 497–499
1887a Stylodictya (Stylodictyon) arachnia Müller –HAECKEL, p. 510–511

Stylodictya arachnoides [nomen nudum]
Pl. 9, Fig. 1

Stylodictya (?) (multispina) spongiosa ? [nomen nudum]
Pl. 11, Fig. 1

Trematodiscus sp.
Pl. 4, Fig. 5

Haeckel’s Messina Radiolarian Collection

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Tetrapyle octacantha Müller 1858b
Pl. 3, Fig. 7
1858a Tetrapyle octacantha n. sp. [nomen nudum] –MÜLLER, p. 154
1858b Tetrapyle octacantha n. sp. –MÜLLER, p. 33–35, pl. 2, figs. 11, 12, pl. 3, figs. 1–6
1862 Tetrapyle octacantha Müller –HAECKEL, p. 435–436
1887a Tetrapyle (Tetrapylura) octacantha Müller –HAECKEL, p. 648

Order Nassellaria Ehrenberg 1876
Lithomelissa thoracites Haeckel 1860apl. 14, fig. 5
1860a Lithomelissa thoracites n. sp. –HAECKEL, p.836–837
1862 Lithomelissa thoracites Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 301–302, pl. 6, figs. 2–8
1887a Lithomelissa (Micromelissa) thoracites Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 1206

Order Acantharia Haeckel 1862
Xiphacantha serrata (Haeckel 1860a)
Pl. 19, Figs. 1, 3
1860a Acanthometra serrata n. sp. –HAECKEL, p.807
1862 Xiphacantha serrata (Haeckel) –HAECKEL, p. 386–387, pl. 17, fig. 3, pl. 18, figs. 14a, 14b
1887a Astrolonche serrata (Haeckel) –HAECKEL, p. 757–758

Order Phaeodaria Haeckel 1879
Aulosphaera trigonopa Haeckel 1860aPl. 12, Fig. 41862 Aulosphaera trigonopa n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 359, pl. 10, fig. 4
1887a Aulosphaera trigonopa Haeckel –HAECKEL, p. 1622

Dictyoplegma trigonizon (Haeckel 1860a)
Pl. 12, Fig. 5
1860a Dictyosoma trigonizon n. sp. –HAECKEL, p. 841
1862 Spongodictyon trigonizon (Haeckel) –HAECKEL, p. 459–460, pl. 26, figs. 5, 6
1887 Sagmarium trigonizon (Haeckel) –HAECKEL, p. 1612–1613

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(Note: All the plates and other tables are prepared as the attachments in the CD at the back of the monograph.)