Ronald Łaniecki is one of the beneficiaries of the competition for funding student and PhD candidates mobility within the HarSval project. He received 10705.12 PLN funding for the research trip: Oslo Natural History Museum.

Enjoy reading his report below:

“A two-week stay at the Natural History Museum in Oslo has ended successfully. The purpose of the trip was to revise the original collection of mites (Acari) of the distinguished Norwegian acarologist Sigvardt Thorkelson, who published under the pseudonym Sig Thor. The age of the collection (more than 120 years), potentially including specimens collected from type localities (loci typici) of the species described by Thor, as well as its controversial fate, make it particularly valuable and worth exploring. Indeed, it should be noted that the collection was to be destroyed according to the author’s last will. Although the microscope preparations made by Thor have not survived to the present day, the selected alcohol-fixed mite specimens remain deposited in the MHN collection in Oslo. Since the bulk of the acarofauna of Norway, Spitsbergen and Bear Island are taxa described by Thor, learning about the contents and state of preservation of his collection was moribund for continuing research on the mite diversity of mainland Norway, the Svalbard Archipelago and the Arctic in general. The trip resulted in a detailed report on the contents and state of preservation of the collection, supplemented by photographic documentation of specimens and original labels. In addition, the visit to the museum allowed access to other collections, such as mite specimens collected during the 1921 Norwegian research expedition to New Earth (Russia). – material significant not only for its age, but also for the inaccessibility of the area from which it came. Finally, a stay at the museum allowed the selection and loan of soil samples from Norway, Greenland, Iceland, Alaska or Canada, for further research. The time spent at the MHN in Oslo resulted in interesting insights into the collection of S. Thor’s collection, the acquisition of materials important for the doctoral thesis in progress, as well as new experiences and contacts with scientists from foreign research centers.”