Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2001, Blaðsíða 108

112
BRACHIOPODA IN THE FAROE ISLANDS AREA
it was nevertheless referred to by Wesen-
berg-Lund (1940).
Wesenberg-Lund was the first to present
a synopsis of the Faroe brachiopods. Her
paper (Wesenberg-Lund, 1940) was based
partly on few and old specimens at the Zoo-
logical Museum in Copenhagen, partly on
published references. Generally the materi-
al comprised only a few specimens from
each locality and only a few specimens
from the Danish expeditions in the 1920s.
Wesenberg-Lund concluded that brachio-
pods were rare on the continental shelf off
the Faroes. As will be demonstrated in the
present paper, this conclusion was wrong,
probably due to the inadequacy of the sam-
pling methods (O.S. Tendal, pers. comm.).
Wesenberg-Lund listed seven species and
showed their distribution on two maps of
the area investigated. The species were: ”1.
Crania anomala (O.F. Miill.), 2. Hemithy-
ris psittacea (Gmelin), 3. Terebratulina ca-
put serpentis (L.), 4. Terebratulina septen-
trionalis Couthouy, 5. Terebratella spits-
bergensis Davidson, 6. Waldheimia (Ma-
candrevia) cranium (O.F. Míiller), 7. Wald-
heimia septigera (Loven)”. The records in
Wesenberg-Lund (1940) of two of these
(Nos. 4 and 5) must now be considered du-
bious, thus T. septentrionalis was repre-
sented by only one specimen, and T. spits-
bergensis (now Glaciarcula spitsbergen-
sis) by only three specimens (one specimen
being referred to T. retusa by G. Curry,
O.S.Tendal pers. comnr.). In addition H.
psittacea was not present in the museum
collection.
Wesenberg-Lund concluded that future
investigations would probably not increase
the number of species, a prediction that has
so far proved correct. She also suggested
that species found in neighbouring areas
might occur off the Faroes. So far, this has
only been confirmed for Platidia anomioi-
des (Scacchi & Philippi, 1844), a single
specimen of which was previously record-
ed by the ”Porcupine” expedition, north off
the Shetlands.
In 1941 Wesenberg-Lund published a
paper on the systematics and geographical
distribution of the brachiopods in the At-
lantic north of 50°N. The main object was
to present the brachiopods of the ”Ingolf'
expedition in the collection of the Zoologi-
cal Museum in Copenhagen. This Danish
expedition took place in 1895 and 1896.
However, brachiopods from later expedi-
tions (”Michael Sars”, ”Thor” and "Dana”)
were also included, see previous published
records in the systematic part of this paper.
A total of 10 species were listed, including
the seven species mentioned previously
(Wesenberg-Lund, 1940).
According to Wolf (1995), the "Ingolf’
expedition was the first Danish investiga-
tion of the deep sea surrounding Iceland
and off south-west Greenland. Both crui-
ses took place via the Faroes. Wesenberg-
Lund (1941) records five brachiopod spe-
cies frorn stations situated within the pre-
sent study area: Crania anomala, Terebrat-
ulina retusa, T. septentrionalis, '’Diestho-
thyris spitzbergensis” (now Glaciarcula
spitzbergensis) and "Waldheimiathyris cra-
nium” (now Macandrevia cranium). For in-
formation on the expeditions with ”Mi-
chael Sars”, ”Thor” and ”Dana” see Tendal
and Bruntse (2001).