A critical evaluation of the exotic bird collection of the Šariš Museum in Bardejov, Slovakia

By

Mikula, Peter
Čanády, Alexander
Hromada, Martin

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2018

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

776

Pages

139-152

Subjects

Aves , Biodiversity , Museum , Ornithological collections , species occurrence data

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.776.24462

 

Abstract

A collection of exotic birds deposited in the Šariš Museum in Bardejov (SMB), Slovakia, has not been evaluated critically since their deposition. We assessed the accuracy of identification of 465 bird specimens deposited in SMB with native distributions outside of Slovakia. Specimens belonged to 322 species of 82 families and 26 orders. Of the specimen represented, 34 belonged to species considered as ‘near-threatened’ (7.3%), 16 as ‘vulnerable’ (3.4%) and one as ‘endangered’ (0.2%). The SMB collection holds 10 of 28 extant Cuban endemic species and another 11 species endemic to the Caribbean archipelago. Even among birds that are relatively easy to identify, many specimens were identified incorrectly or species identification was missing. Of 465 specimens evaluated, 95 (20.4%) were identified incorrectly or were missing species identification, and another 79 (17%) were identified correctly, but their names have changed over time due to taxonomic shift, thus they required correction.