Abstract
Although G. O. Sars intended to produce a monograph of the Cladocera of Norway, he never continued this endeavor after the first part published in 1865. Because of this objective, Sars published only Latin diagnoses of the 52 species of Cladocera he described from Norway, unaccompanied by any published illustrations except for one species in his 1865 paper. A close study of the Sars archive in the University Library in Oslo revealed a large unpublished manuscript of 1861 containing amplified descriptions and detailed illustrations of the first 36 of these species, and there is a wealth of unpublished colored drawings of these and the other species. Moreover, a 46-year diary details the many other activities that diverted Sars from the Cladocera, and eight unpublished lists of the Cladocera provide insight into his uncertainties regarding the definition and limits of species. The genera Daphnia and, to a lesser extent, Bosmina constituted the greatest problem for him, and it is quite certain that these complex groups of highly variable organisms more than anything else thwarted completion of the project.
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Frey, D.G. G. O. Sars and the Norwegian Cladocera: a continuing frustration. Hydrobiologia 96, 267–293 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00010617
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00010617