AN ANNOTATED TYPE CATALOGUE OFAMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES IN THE MUSEUM OFNATURE AT V. N. KARAZIN KHARKIV NATIONAL UNIVERSITY (KHARKIV, UKRAINE) Valeriy Vedmederya † , 1 Oleksandr Zinenko, 1 and Andrei Barabanov 2 Submitted September 25, 2008. This publication provides a critical review of the amphibian and reptilian type specimens presented in the collec- tion of the Museum of Nature at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Kharkiv, Ukraine), as of May 2008. The collection contains type specimens of twenty taxa. Eleven of them are valid species or subspecies. Lecto- types of Hyla arborea schelkownikowi, Rana dentex, Eryx miliaris nogaiorum, Coluber schmidti, and Ancistro- don halys caucasicus are designated. Information about lost type materials is provided. Keywords: Museum of Nature at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, systematic collection, reptiles, am- phibians, type specimens, type catalogue. INTRODUCTION This paper has been prepared to provide information on the type material of amphibians and reptiles pre- sented in the collection of the Museum of Nature at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (herein- after — Museum of Nature or MNKNU) as of May 2008. Unfortunately, due to the lack of information some authors have ignored this collection or provided incorrect data about MNKNU types. The Museum of Nature was founded in 1807 as the Nature Cabinet at the Physical and Mathematical Fac- ulty of Kharkiv Imperial University, which was estab- lished in 1805 (Systematical catalogue, 1854; Redikor- tsev, 1908; Stepanov, 1908; Grubant and Rudayeva, 1955). The collection was primarily acquired by the Ital- ian collector Chetty in St. Petersburg. There is very little information about the amphibian and reptile specimens stored in the Cabinet during the first years of its exis- tence. The first specimens were obtained during the pe- riod of Prof. Igor Krynicky’s superintendence in 1825 – 1938 (Systematical catalogue, 1854; Redikortsev, 1908; Stepanov, 1908). Krynicky gathered these specimens by himself during his expeditions to the South provinces of the Russian Empire: Southern Ukraine, the Crimea, and Northern Caucasus. Several new species were described based on these specimens (Krynicki, 1837), which have been preserved in the Museum of Nature until now. Numerous and very valuable contributions of am- phibians and reptiles were made in 1903 – 1912, when Aleksandr Nikolsky, the outstanding Russian herpetolo- gist, was a director of the Zoological Cabinet, later re- named as the Zoological Museum. About 190 specimens of snakes, 100 specimens of lizards and 50 specimens of amphibians from different areas of the Russian Empire (see numerous Nikolsky’s papers) are part of the collec- tions received during this period, including the majority of type specimens, which are stored in the Museum of Nature today. The main part of the collection of amphibians and reptiles of the former Soviet Union was received in the 1970s to the 1990s. Many species are represented by a series of specimens, but type specimens of this period are not numerous. Today, about 10,000 specimens of more than 130 species of amphibians and 390 species of reptiles are stored in the herpetological collection of the Museum of Nature. At present, 20 taxa are represented by type materials (Caudata — 1, Anura — 5, Sauria — 6, Serpentes — 8) in the MNKNU collections, eleven of them are valid species or subspecies. There are 37 type specimens, 1026-2296/2009/1603-0203 © 2009 Folium Publishing Company Russian Journal of Herpetology Vol. 16, No. 3, 2009, pp. 203 – 212 1 The Museum of Nature at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National Univer- sity, Trinkler str. 8, Kharkiv, 61022, Ukraine; E-mail: zinenkoa@yahoo.com 2 Department of Herpetology, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya Nab., 1, St. Petersburg, 199034, Rus- sia; E-mail: azemiops@zin.ru