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In search of elusive type specimens ... (1 Viewer)

Closure on "Lindroths Ugglan"

Either way; it seems like the type specimen itself is no longer extant. Lost somewhere, at some point, at some time. The Plate is all we´ve got. Case closed.

Strix Lindrothii ... over and out!
 
Nilsson's Firecrest

And what about ...
• the invalid Firecrest "Regulus Nilssonii" BREHM 1826 (here) [Syn. Regulus ignicapilla TEMMINCK 1820, earlier a k a R. ignicapillus] ... also here and here (by Brehm, 1828). Does either one of those three Papers tell us where the type is/was located? All three in German (in that hard-to-read Fraktur Typeface).

Doesn´t Brehm, in the 1826 Paper (fist link above), tell us: ... noch 2 Arten in Deutschland, ja um meinem Wohnort zu entdecken." ...? That would mean something like: "... yet another 2 Species in Germany, discovered at my place of residence".

Indicating that the Type of "Regulus Nilssonii" was collected in Germany. And if so, how about this specimen (L824/3001, search for "Regulus ignicapillus"), collected in 1824, at "Radathal" (!?!), Germany, today kept in the collections of Biologiska museet (The Biological Museum) , in Lund, southern Sweden (where professor Sven Nilsson worked and lived).

Anyone know if there´s a place called "Radathal" near the village Renthendorf, Thüringen (in Germany) where Christian Ludwig Brehm (1787–1864) worked and lived (from 1913, until he died)?

Anyone?

Note that the same Museum also have three specimens (L824/3009 - L824/3011) of the (Common) Goldcrest Regulus r. regulus in their collection, all three collected in 1824, in "Renthendorf ".

Björn

PS. I can locate Renthendorf (and "Rentendorf" on the Map of Thuringian States 1890, here, see excerpt attached), but no sight of any "Radathal" ...
 

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Take it for what it's worth, but thal is a deprecated spelling of tal, meaning valley, and the river that flows through Renthendorf is called Roda. Rodathal would mean the valley of the river Roda.
 
Thanks Laurent! :t:

I think you might have cracked it! I will check with the Curator in Lund if the label (alt. their ledgers or registers) truly says "Radathal" (maybe it´s simply "Rodathal"). If the latter; it would make sense.

We´ll see!

Björn

PS. By the way; did Brehm's OD include any sort of dedication, or a link alt. a clear connection, to Sven Nilsson. Is there any Nilsson at all, mentioned in those first three links (in post #62) ... ? Or maybe even a Type location?
 
Even if not an out-spoken dedication ...

If we look at Isis van Oken (same Paper as the OD!), here or here (of 1826), left Column, I think it´s fair to say that Brehm knew of Nilsson's work.
Das hiesige Rodathal ist in der Nähe des Flusses mit Laubbäumen, auf seinem ...
[...]
[Bottom of page] 7) Fringilla flavirostris, der gelbschnäblige Hänfling ...
... Herr Nilsson hat mich durch seine vortreffliche Ornithologia Suecica und Skandinavisk Fauna überzeugt, ...
Click to expand...
Clearly a link between them!

/B
 
Some books, and Papers, refer to this book (from 1832!), as the OD for "Regulus Nilssonii". Or even this one! From 1831 ... ? Both clearly later than Brehm's 1826 Paper in Isis van Oken. But the latter leads us even further back, to this plate, and book, by the same Brehm (1822). However this time without any mention of Sven Nilsson (or "Nilssonii").

I assume this plate is only an illustration of Brehm's own "Regulus pyrocephalus" [todays (Eurasian/Common) Firecrest Regulus ignicapilla TEMMINCK 1820], not excluding the specimen from "Radathal/Rodathal" (collected in 1824) as a possible candidate for the Type of "Nilssonii "?
 
As I still haven't figured it out ... the (re-phrased) questions remains:

Did Brehm's OD include any sort of (out-spoken) dedication, aimed at Sven Nilsson personally, alt. in either one of those first three links (in post #62) ... ? Or a Type location?

Anyone "out there", who knows German and is able to read those Old-school Fraktur letters ...?

Grateful for any assistance!
 
In 1832, Brehm also published a quite long paper specifically on Goldhänchen in Isis: [here]. (Alt. [here] -- OCR of Fraktur texts is usually better in Google Books than at BHL.)

I wouldn't assume a holotype for a name like nilssonii. No type was designated in the OD (no holotype by original designation), and the knowledge that a taxon occurs "in ganz kleinen Gesellschaften oder einzeln im Frühjahre und Herbste" cannot be gained from a single individual (logically, no holotype by monotypy). In principle, the illustrated bird (initially published as pyrocephalus; subsequently [but was it before 1826?] re-identified by Brehm as his new taxon), and the 1824 specimen might both be syntypes. But you would need more info about the 1824 bird to be more affirmative than this. (NB - Even if this bird could be shown to have been collected by Brehm, this would still not be conclusive, because Brehm apparently classified only a minority of the Firecrests he met with in Germany as nilssonii.)

I find no outspoken dedication. And no clear indication of type locality besides the "um meinem Wohnort" in the OD -- but you already noted this. (But, of course, I'm far from being a native speaker.)
 
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Thanks, Laurent, that´s all I needed. :t:

Now the next step (for me that is) will be to contact the Museum in Lund, to ask if they have any additional info on their Firecrest specimen from "Radathal" (hopefully "Rodathal"). We´ll see ...

However; this is as far as I think we can go trying to find the Nilssonische Goldhähnchen ("Nilsson's Goldcrest") here on BirdForum (and the internet).

"Nilssonii" ... over and out! Or maybe, more like: "On hold".

Björn

PS. I´ll return if the Curator in Lund has any new info (it will take a while).
 
Forskåhlii & Forskålii

Time for the very last one/s of my "missing" types ... (for now, that is). ;)

Anyone who know where (and if) we can find the dittos of:

• "Falco Forskåhlii" GMELIN 1788 (OD attached) [Synonym of the Yellow-billed Kite Milvus (migrans) aegyptius GMELIN 1788]

• "Bucerotem Forskålii"* alt. "Buceros, Lophoceros, Forskålii" (both) HEMPRICH & EHRENBERG 1828 (both names on same page, OD attached, in two jpgs) [today the debated subspecies (Tockus) Lophoceros nasutus forskalii HEMPRICH & EHRENBERG 1828 (not L. n. forskali, with single-i, used by some)]

That is, of course, if they, the Types, are still extant!?

I know that some of Hemprich's and Ehrenberg's specimens, like for example; one of "their" Ciconia abdimii ended up in the collections of the Humboldt University in Berlin, and (if I remember it all correctly) yet another specimen found its way to the Natural History Museum of Vienna (Wien). If either one of those collections, still today also includes the type of the above mentioned Hornbill (and possibly also the Kite), is unknown to me [both commemorating Peter Forsskål (1732–1763)**].

Anyone who does know where the specimens of this Kite, and Hornbill, ended up?

Grateful for any help.

Björn
_____________________________________________________
*Bucerotem is not listed in today's HBW Alive Key!? Or maybe it is only Latin grammar?

**Earlier dealt with (and somewhat nagged about), in the thread Forsskål's Kite,
in the Bird Name Etymology sub-forum (here). His name was Peter Forsskål
(simply latinized into Petrus).
 

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Calalp said:
*Bucerotem is not listed in today's HBW Alive Key!? Or maybe it is only Latin grammar?
Click to expand...
Merely Latin grammar.
"In southern Arabia, we found 4 species, one [of them] European: Buceros Forskålii, Coracias habessinica, Oriolus Galbula, Lamprothornis leucogaster [...]" : all the underlined text is "what they found", the object of the sentence, thus in accusative case in Latin (bar "Forskålii" which is a genitive and must remain as is).
Species remains species, because the acc. plur. of species is, well, species... Europaea becomes europaeam, una becomes unam, Buceros becomes Bucerotem, Coracias become Coraciam, habessinica becomes habessinicam, Oriolus become Oriolum, Galbula becomes Galbulam, Lamprothornis becomes Laprothornidem (a somewhat unusual choice of stem, though; you would expect -ornithem), leucogaster becomes leucogastrum.
 
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"Buceros, Lophoceros, Forskålii"

Notes on the Specimens in the Berlin Museum collected by Hemprich and Ehrenberg, by Dresser & Blandford (1874): (here):
BUCEROS FORSKÅLII, ...
[...]
No. 15620 (type). Arabia ...
Click to expand...
... which lead us to "Lophoceros Forskalii"; here, and here.

Voilà! Bingo!

Everything is so much easier when knowing what to look for!

One down! So what about the missing Kite? Anyone? Any idea?

/B
 
To me it looks like the Type of "Falco Forskåhlii" is sadly lost (if ever existing, as a preserved specimen?), as of today (even in Milvus); it seems nowhere to be found.

Well, that´s it. We´re at the end of my search for elusive type specimens ...

Thanks everybody (most of all Laurent) for trying to help me find them.

The remaning ones I will simply save for later. As of tomorrow I have to focus on other things.

On hold ... for (quite) a while!
 
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