Museum specimens as Noah’s Arc of lost genes. The case of a rhinoceros from Sumatra in the Zoological Museum Hamburg

By

Glaubrecht, Matthias
Neiber, Marco T.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2017-12-15

Original Publication

Evolutionary systematics

Volume

1

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

121--128

Subjects

Asian rhinoceros , biohistory , Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak) , Dicerorhinus sumatrensis , Javan rhinoceros , mitochondrial gene fragment , Molecular genetics , Rhinoceros sondaicus , Sumatran rhinoceros

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Hamburg Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak) 2017-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.1.20172

 

Abstract

Understanding past and present genetic diversity, in particular in endangered species such as the rhinoceroses, is of paramount importance for a series of aspects in natural history, evolutionary systematics and conservation. As it turned out from several recent studies even in eminent museum specimens the historical context including its provenance often remains unresolved. At the same time modern molecular genetic techniques make this material more and more available also for integrative studies. With probably less than fifty extant specimens, among the Asian rhinoceroses the Javan rhinoceros, Rhinoceros sondaicus, is one of the most critically endangered mammal species, rendering also each of its rare museum specimens of great significance. We here apply available DNA isolation and sequencing techniques to a horn of a specimen housed at the Zoological Museum in Hamburg with indication as to derive from the extinct conspecific Sumatra population. In comparison with already existing mitochondrial gene fragment sequence data of Asian rhino populations, we were able to verify the identification of this particular museum specimen as of the nearly equally rare Sumatran rhinoceros, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, instead as of the extremely rare R. sondaicus.