Bonn zoological Bulletin 



Volume 59 



pp. 79-108 



Bonn, December 20 1 0 



A list of the herpetological type specimens 

 in the Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Bonn 



Wolfgang Bohme 



Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Herpetology Section, Adenauerallee 160, 

 D-53113 Bonn, Germany; E-mail: w.boehme.zfmk@uni-bonn.de. 



Abstract. In the herpetological collection of ZFMK 528 scientific species group names are represented by type materi- 

 al. Of these, 304 names are documented by primary type specimens (onomatophores) while for 224 further names sec- 

 ondary type specimens (typoids) are available, ranging chronologically from 1801 to 2010. The list is a shortened pred- 

 ecessor of a comprehensive type catalogue in progress. It lists name bearing types with their catalogue numbers includ- 

 ing information on further type series members also in other institutions, while secondary types are listed only by pres- 

 ence, both in ZFMK and other collections including holotype repositories. Geographic origin and currently valid names 

 are also provided. 



Key words. Amphibians and reptiles, type list, ZFMK Bonn. 



INTRODUCTION 



A first ZFMK herpetological type catalogue was published 

 (Bohme 1974) three years after I had entered Museum 

 Koenig as a herpetological curator. It contained only 34 

 reptilian names documented by type material, 22 of which 

 were name-bearing type specimens (onomatophores), and 

 12 further names were documented by paratypes only. 

 Amphibians were not represented by type material at that 

 time. A second type catalogue was published ten years lat- 

 er, on the occasion of the 50 th anniversary of Museum 

 Koenig as a public zoological museum (Bohme & 

 Bischoff 1984). It counted 147 names of amphibians (51) 

 and reptiles (96) of which 99 were onomatophores while 

 48 additional names were documented by secondary type 

 material (paratypes, paralectotypes). In addition, 22 

 names representing primary and secondary type specimens 

 of historical material which had belonged before to the Zo- 

 ological Museum in Gottingen (transferred to ZFMK in 

 1977) were listed as missing types because they were al- 

 ready lost before they ever reached ZFMK. 



Within the present special BzB issue on type lists of the 

 vertebrate and invertebrate collections of ZFMK, the pres- 

 ent herpetological list is a much shortened predecessor of 

 a comprehensive, critically evaluated type catalogue of 

 ZFMK amphibians and reptiles which will be published 

 in the framework of a monograph dealing with the histo- 

 ry of herpetological research in Bonn since the founda- 

 tion of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat in 

 1818 which predates the foundation of ZFMK, particular- 

 ly the creation of its own herpetological department 



(currently section) in 1951, for many decades. Nonethe- 

 less, the present list does comprise some historical "pre- 

 ZFMK" material which has been obtained after 1971 from 

 smaller university museums, first of all from the Zoolog- 

 ical Museum of the University of Gottingen (1977). Sin- 

 gle taxa documented by type specimens were also received 

 by the Zoological Museum of the University of Kiel 

 (1973), and recently by the Biogeography Department of 

 the University of Saarbriicken (via University of Trier, in 

 2009). 



The following catalogue comprises, with one exception 

 (the chameleon Kinyongia vanheygeni), only the extant 

 types while those types which went lost in Gottingen be- 

 fore the collection transfer to Bonn, and which have been 

 already mentioned in Bohme & Bischoff (1984), will be 

 carefully listed and commented on in the forthcoming 

 monograph mentioned above. 



The delimitation and arrangement of families follows Frost 

 et al. (2006) for the amphibians, and Bohme & Sander 

 (2010) for the reptiles, plus the familial concept of Zaher 

 et al. (2009) for colubroid snakes. For dendrobatid frogs, 

 I follow the monograph by Grant et al. (2006, see also Loi- 

 ters et al. 2007); for Madagascar, I follow Glaw & Vences 

 (2007). Within their families, taxa are arranged in alpha- 

 betical order of genera, and within genera, arrangement 

 is again alphabetically. Names of authors are accompanied 

 by an initial letter of their forenames only when a fami- 

 ly name occurs more than twice. 



Bonn zoological Bulletin 59: 79-108 



©ZFMK 



