10 
NOTICE 
R. Viader Collection 
Ian Loch 
Australian Museum 
6 College Street 
Sydney, New South Wales 2000 
Generally, the whereabouts of the Mauritian collections described by R. Viader (1938, 1951) are | 
unknown to the scientific community. Part of the collections on which Viader (1951) was based was 
recently found in private hands in Mauritius. Mr. Owen Griffiths of Senneville, Mauritius, while visiting 
Mr. F.V. Descroizilles in search of terrestrial molluscs, was shown a collection of smaller marine molluscs 
purchased from the late R. Viader's son in about 1982. The collection was in poor shape, stored in a 
garage and ravaged by insects, but some material had slips with plate and figure numbers. Mr. Griffiths 
obtained the material and presented it to the Australian Museum in 1993. He was told that larger shells 
had been sold to local collectors, that acquired by Mr. Descroizilles being subsequently resold. Other 
material is held privately by Viader descendants now in the United Kingdom (pers. comm. D.G. Herbert, 
Natal Museum). 
While the material now in the Australian Museum had no locality labels, many had individual 
identification labels and some had citation labels. Some labels were now separated from relevant 
specimens. The few lots which were clearly recognisable as not belonging to the Mauritian fauna were 
accompanied by non-Mauritian locality labels. More than 800 lots of small marine molluscs have now 
been distinguished. Types for 19 of the 27 new species level taxa in the 1951 paper, 8 other figured lots 
and 11 cited lots have been identified. No specimens identifiable with material included in Viader (1938) 
could be identified. Also, a lot from Oubatche, New Caledonia already held in the Australian Museum 
(C.4037) and cited by Hedley (1899) is recognised as a syntypic lot of Contumax hedleyi Viader, 1951, 
a previously unrecognised (eg. Houbrick, 1992) synonym of Cerithium nodulosum Bruguiére, 1792. 
Types distinguished (all Viader, 1951): 
Arcidae: Arca acupicta, holotype, C.305529, 1 valve. Arca approximata, holotype, C.305531, 1 valve. 
Arca elegans, syntypes, C.305532, 2 valves. Arca lienardi, syntypes, C.305533, 3 valves. Petunculus 
ornatus, holotype, C.305534, 1 valve. 
Mytilidae: Brachydontes (Hormomya) ramulosus, syntypes, C.305542, 8 valves. 
Lucinidae: Lucina (Phacoides) virginiae, holotype, C.305546, 1 pair valves. Lucina (Bellucina) 
louisensis, syntypes, C.305545, 3 valves. 
Carditidae: Cardita vinsoni, syntypes, C.305543, many valves. Cardita transclathratum, syntypes, 
C.305554, 16 valves. Cardita vaughani, syntypes, C.305544, many valves. 
Veneridae: Dosinia miticula, syntypes, C.305553, many valves. Chione (Timoclea) сопсіппа, syntypes, 
C.305552, 4 valves. Chione similicentrifuga, syntypes, C.305624, 4 valves. 
Tellinidae: Tellina patagiata mauritiana, syntypes, C.305551, 6 valves. 
Psammobiidae: Psammobia flabellum, syntypes, C.305557, 5 valves. 
Turbinidae: Leptothyra morini, 3 syntypes, C.305556. 
Columbellidae: Pyrene parvula, holotype, C.305615. Pyrene perparvula, 1l possible syntypes, 
C.305617. 
Literature cited 
Hedley, C. 1899. The Mollusca of Funifati. Part 1. Gasteropoda. Memoirs of the Australian Museum 3(7): 395-488. 
Houbrick, R.S. 1992. Monograph of the genus Cerithium Bruguiére in the Indo-Pacific (Cerithiidae: Prosobranchia). 
Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 510: 1-211. 
Viader, R. 1938. Descriptions of nine new marine shells from Mauritius and its dependencies. The Mauritius Institute 
Bulletin 1(3): 3-8. 
Viader, R. 1951. New or unrecorded shells from Mauritius and its dependencies. The Mauritius Institute Bulletin 3(2): 
127-155. 
