Arthropod types from Sparth Bottoms in the Howard Collection (Rochdale Museum Service) Lucy A. Muir a, *, Jason Dunlop b , Andrew Moore c a Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 39 East Beijing Road, Nanjing 210008, China b Museum fu ¨r Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity at the Humboldt University Berlin, Invalidenstrasse 43, D-10115 Berlin, Germany c Rochdale Museum Service, Unit 4, Scotts Industrial Park, Fishwick Street, Rochdale, OL16 5NA, UK 1. Introduction Sparth Bottoms, a brick clay pit in the Middle Coal Measures (Carboniferous) near Rochdale, Lancashire, yielded a great many well-preserved fossils in the early years of the 20th century, thanks largely to the efforts of a committee of geologists based in nearby Littleborough and Rochdale (Woodward, 1907). The Sparth pit is no longer accessible and further collecting is impossible (Howell, 1985). This makes existing collections even more important. The fossils are preserved in ironstone nodules, and include plants, bivalve molluscs, fish, and arthropods such as horseshoe crabs, millipedes, insects and scorpions. The site is known to have produced material until about 1910 (Howell, 1985). It is not known exactly when the site ceased as a brick pit, but it is likely to have been around this time. Many fossil species have been described from Sparth Bottoms, including plants (Platt, 1895), fish (Moysey, 1910; Parker, 1908, 1910; Sutcliffe, 1910) and a variety of arthropods (e.g. Baldwin, 1905a; Hopwood, 1925; Parker, 1911; Woodward, 1907), includ- ing horseshoe crabs (Baldwin, 1902, 1905b, 1906a), crustaceans (Woodward, 1911a), insects (Bolton, 1916, 1921–22), millipedes (Baldwin, 1911; Jackson et al., 1919) and scorpions (Baldwin and Sutcliffe, 1904; Pocock, 1911). Most publications were in the early years of the twentieth century (Fig. 1). After 1911 there are few descriptions of new specimens, but instead redescriptions and/or reinterpretations of previously described material, such as the re- interpretation of Rochdalia, originally described as a crustacean (Woodward, 1913), as an insect nymph (Rolfe, 1967; Wootton, 1972). One exception is the description of Camptophyllia sp. by Hansman (1972), but this was a single specimen fortuitously found in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge; the paper does not state how long the object had been there. The majority of papers are on the arthropods, with the plants, fish and molluscs receiving far less attention. Rochdale Museum Service holds a large number of arthropod, plant and fish fossils from Sparth, mostly unidentified and unaccessioned. Donors include Harold Howard, William Albert Parker, James Maxim and Walter Baldwin. The collection also includes bronze casts of type and figured arthropods from Sparth, donated to the museum by W.A. Parker. Most of the type and figured arthropod material from Sparth is in the Natural History Museum, London, but some went to the Manchester Museum, while a few other objects were not deposited in either of these larger collections. A collection including several type specimens was given to Rochdale Museum by their collector, Harold Howard. Although the specimens were all published in 1911, correspon- dence held in the museum collections paperwork reveals they were not deposited in the museum until 1939. The types are the holotype of Eobuthus holti Pocock, 1911 (Fig. 2A), the holotype of Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 123 (2012) 165–169 A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 14 February 2011 Received in revised form 10 May 2011 Accepted 18 May 2011 Available online 15 June 2011 Keywords: Arthropoda Chelicerata Crustacea Curation Myriapoda Scorpiones A B S T R A C T Rochdale Museum Service holds a large collection of fossils from the important Carboniferous site of Sparth Bottoms (Lancashire, UK; Middle Coal Measures). Several of these are type specimens donated by Harold Howard in 1939. These objects were stored in the museum basement for several decades, and were thought to have been lost. The types are the holotype of the scorpion Eobuthus holti Pocock, 1911 and the holotype of the crustacean Anthrapalaemon grossarti var. holti Woodward, 1911a. These species were not named after Howard, because the describers thought that Fred Holt was the rightful collector. The holotype of the myriapod Euphoberia woodwardi Baldwin, 1911 (put into synonymy with Palaeosoma robustum Baldwin, 1911) is known to have originally been in the collection, but was not located in a recent survey. ß 2011 The Geologists’ Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Fax: +86 25 83357026. E-mail addresses: lucy@asoldasthehills.org (L.A. Muir), jason.dunlop@mfn-berlin.de (J. Dunlop), andrew.moore@link4life.org (A. Moore). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association jo ur n al ho m ep ag e: www .els evier .c om /lo cat e/p g eo la 0016-7878/$ – see front matter ß 2011 The Geologists’ Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pgeola.2011.05.004