The collection of fossil remnants of cartilaginous fishes


formed by the prominent soviet paleoichthyologist L.S. Glickman


L.S. Glickman The collection of remnants of the fossil cartilaginous fishes was formed by the famous soviet paleoichthyologist L.S. Glickman (1929-2000). It includes tens of thousands scientific items displaying the development if this group from the Carboniferous period until present time. The collection mainly consists of fossil teeth of ancient sharks, rays and Holocephali. In addition, it includes the remnants of Teleostei, teeth and fragments of bones of sea reptiles and other remnants of different invertebrates such as sponges, gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods and echinoderms. Most of the material includes the Cretaceous (over 1000 items) and Cenozoic (over 500 items from the Paleogene period) groups of the Lamniformes.

Excluding the small Carboniferous collections, the collection presents the materials from the late Jurassic period until modern times almost without any stratigraphic breaks, namely from the late Jurassic period, early Cretaceous (excluding the Berriasian), from all ages of late Cretaceous, the Paleogene, the Neogene and the Quaternary Period (including the Holocene).

In 1982 the collection was given to the State Darwin Museum by the candidate of biology N.N. Kalandadze, the senior researcher at the Y.A. Orlov Museum of Paleontology RAS. This collection has a great scientific and cultural value. It is known that most items had been collected by L.S. Glickman himself for over 40 years (late 1940es – 1980es). The entire collection includes the smaller ones formed by other geologists and paleontologists: V.I. Zhelezko, V.V. Menner, A.C. Stoliarov, V.A. Bronevoy, R.G. Garetskiy, N.E. Melnikova, D.V. Obruchev and others. There are also materials with old labels gathered by A.S. Rogovich (1850es), I.F. Sintsov (1870es) and a unique collection of fossil shark teeth found during scientific research in the Pacific and Indian oceans (RV “Vityaz”, “Ob” and “Lomonosov”).

The collection of L.S. Glickman is world famous and still remains a unique resource of information on ancient sharks for many scientists and researchers. These materials have been available for study since 2014. Many specialists in paleoichthyology from different Russian cities regularly visit the State Darwin Museum to study this collection: E.V. Popov and A.V. Biriukov (Saratov), specialists in cartilaginous fishes of the Cretaceous period, T.P. Malyshkina (Yekaterinburg), specialised in Paleogene sharks of Kazakhstan, F.A. Trikolidi (Saint Petersburg), specialised in ancient sharks of Crimea.

At present time, the primary processing and accounting of samples of the Late Cretaceous period is almost complete. The largest part includes the extensive material from the neighborhood of Saratov (about 36400 items). The collection includes materials from different parts of European Russia, Crimea, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Moldova, Lithuania and Germany. The data base currently includes about 39 500 processed shark teeth of the Cenomanian period.

Please contact the keeper and the author of the article E.M. Baykina for more information about the collection.


The collection of L.S. Glickman

The collection of L.S. Glickman

The collection of L.S. Glickman

The collection of L.S. Glickman

The collection of L.S. Glickman



The collection of fossil remnants of cartilaginous fishes