Queensland Museum Other Invertebrates

With the Great Barrier Reef our most important marine biodiversity resource, the Queensland Museum has a strong focus on marine invertebrates, including sessile, free-living and parasitic species.
Much material has come from the CIDARIS Expeditions of the 1980s, the Great Barrier Reef Seabed Biodiversity Project 2003-2006 and more recent research-funded collecting along the eastern seaboard.
Terrestrial organisms are also represented, including the historical Josephine Mackerras collection from the former School of Tropical Medicine, Townsville.
Represented groups are:
* one of the most important collections of ascidians (Tunicata) in the world with 224 primary types;
* significant collection of Indo-west Pacific Bryozoa including 41 primary types;
* recent additions of world-class collections of jellyfish (marine stingers, hydro- and cubomedusae);
* Platyhelminthes (flatworms) including 839 primary types, with a focus on parasitic helminths;
* Nematoda including 213 primary types, with a focus on parasitic forms;
* Oligochaeta (earthworms) including 150 primary types;
* Polychaeta (marine) including 13 primary types;
* Echinodermata including 16 primary types;
* Onychophora (velvet worms) including 10 primary types.