Bonn zoological Bulletin 



Volume 59 



pp. 29-77 



Bonn, December 20 1 0 



Type specimens in the bird collections of the 

 Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Bonn 



Renate van den Elzen 



Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Adenauerallee 160, D-531 13 Bonn, Germany; 



E-mail: r.elzen.zfmk(o)uni-bonn.de. 



INTRODUCTION 



Primary types play an important role as name-bearing 

 specimens (ICZN, 1999) in the context of correctly ad- 

 dressing the whole spectrum of biodiversity. Names and 

 thus taxonomy are the first step to identify and arrange 

 the diversity of species in appropriate order. The impor- 

 tance of type specimens requires that the infonnation about 

 types should be made globally available. This was the 

 main objective to present this checklist of syntypes, holo- 

 types, lectotypes and paratypes (including paralectotypes) 

 deposited in the skin collections of the ZFMK. A previ- 

 ous list of types in the ZFMK (Rheinwald & van den Elzen 

 1984) can be seen as a first step. The list is outdated, in- 

 complete and written in German only. Moreover, with the 

 progress of the digital catalogue of bird type specimens 

 in German research collections under GIBF-D- Vertebra- 

 ta (van den Elzen et al. 2005) and the increase of network- 

 ing between ornithological collections, several type series 

 were found to be spread over different collections and this 

 valuable information on whereabouts of type specimens 

 is added here. Also the new ICZN with its stricter rules 

 was applied to the former type list and helpful suggestions 

 from colleagues improved the revised version. The new 

 catalogue thus offers the state of knowledge of today. It 

 makes no claim to be complete or free of errors, but it is 

 thought to be a starting point for further discussions, ad- 

 ditions or amendments and other suggestions towards a 

 global register of scientific bird names and the collections 

 holding bird types. 



Since the previous version of the ZFMK bird type cata- 

 logue 13 new taxa were added. The type checklist com- 

 prises today 322 primary names, 137 holotypes, 47 syn- 

 types and 95 lectotypes, as well as about 989 para- and 

 paralectotypes. A multitude of new names was proposed 

 by O. Kleinschmidt (and coauthors; 121), whose Collec- 

 tion (Coll. Kl.) was sold to the ZFMK in 1935. Several 

 other collections (of Harms, von Jordans, Dernedde, 

 Schiebel or Martens) were handed to the ZFMK between 

 1940 and 2006. These collections also included type ma- 

 terial that is considered here. And last not least the founder 



of the ZFMK, Alexander Koenig, proposed eight new 

 names for birds, of which five are still recognized names 

 of bird species or subspecies today (Dickinson 2003). 



The taxa presented in the checklist include all name-bear- 

 ing types, without evaluating their present acceptance. So 

 we list not only currently recognized taxa, but also syn- 

 onyms, regardless whether these are objective or subjec- 

 tive synonyms. The sequence of families follows the 

 Howard and Moore Checklist (Dickinson 2003). Also cur- 

 rent names were added as a service as in some cases the 

 original names cannot be assigned to current scientific bird 

 names without some difficulty Current names follow 

 Dickinson (2003), but could not be applied with certain- 

 ty to all names proposed, as e.g. several of Kleinschmidf s 

 taxon names are not listed in any fonunners of the Howard 

 and Moore Checklist (Dickinson 2003), e.g. Peters 

 Checklist (Mayr & Cottrell, 1979, 1986, Mayr & Green- 

 way 1960, 1962, Mayr & Paynter 1964, Paynter 1967, 

 1968, 1970, Peters 1931-1951, Traylor 1979), Hartert 

 (1910-1932) or other sources. 



Abbreviations for Museum collections used: 



AMNH = American Museum of Natural History, New 

 York, New York, U.S.A. 



BMNH = Natural History Museum, Tring (= British Mu- 

 seum (Natural History), U.K. 



CNHM = Chicago Natural History Museum, Chicago, 

 U.S.A. 



DMD = Durban Museum, Durban, R.S.A. 



MCZ = Harvard University, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 



MfN = Museum fur Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany (= 



ZMB) 



MHN = Museo de Historia Natural "Javier Prado", Lima, 

 Peru 



MTKD = see SNS 



NHMW = Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria 



Bonn zoological Bulletin 59: 29-77 



©ZFMK 



