• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

National Museum Brasil completely burned down (1 Viewer)

Fred Ruhe

Fred Ruhe

Well-known member
Netherlands
This night the National Museum of Natural History of Brasil in Rio de Janeiro completely burned down. The collection was destroyed. This also has consequences for birds:

Quercymegapodiidae Mourer-Chauviré, 1992
Ameripodius silvasantosi Alvarenga, 1995 (the type of the genus)

Anhimidae Stejneger, 1885
Chaunoides antiquus Alvarenga, 1999 (the holotype and paratypes)

Agnopteridae Lambrecht, 1933
Agnopterus sicki Alvarenga, 1990 (the holotype and refered

Phorusrhacidae Ameghino, 1889
Paleopsilopterus itaboraiensis Alvarenga, 1985 (the holotype and paratype, type of the genus)


Fred
 
That reminds me on the fire in the National Museum of Natural History and Science, Lisbon 40 years ago were also irreplaceable collections got lost.
 
These would presumably not be fossils, but:

Gonzaga LP. 1898. Catálogo dos tipos na colleção do Museu Nacional. I. Não-Passeriformes. Bol. Mus. Paraense E Goeldi, Zool., 5: 9-40
Gonzaga LP. 1898. Catálogo dos tipos na colleção do Museu Nacional. II. Passeriformes. Bol. Mus. Paraense E Goeldi, Zool., 5: 41-69.

...from the Google previews (I can't find more online right now), the Museum harboured in 1989:
  • 101 non-passerine types (14 holotypes, 8 lectotypes, 36 syntypes, 17 paratypes, 26 paralectotypes; relative to 37 taxa in total), and
  • 130 passerine types (32 holotypes, 2 lectotypes, 15 syntypes, 79 paratypes, 2 paralectotypes; relative to 40 taxa in total).
Additionally, some more recent taxa had their types deposited there as well (e.g., Scytalopus iraiensis, described in 1998; Cichlocolaptes mazarbarnetti, described in 2014 and possibly extinct).

(That said, not everything was destroyed, it seems. The collection of malacological types was saved, and "outras partes também" (according to [this]; forwarded to Taxacom this morning).)
 
As mentioned in my other post here all modern vertebrates, the botanical collections etc. were totally unscathed (because they are held in other buildings some distance from where the fire occurred). So, all of these avian types mentioned above were totally unaffected.

On the other hand, if Arachnidae are your "thang" then more than 800 types went up in the proverbial smoke...
 
Fred Ruhe said:
This night the National Museum of Natural History of Brasil in Rio de Janeiro completely burned down. The collection was destroyed. This also has consequences for birds:

Quercymegapodiidae Mourer-Chauviré, 1992
Ameripodius silvasantosi Alvarenga, 1995 (the type of the genus)

Anhimidae Stejneger, 1885
Chaunoides antiquus Alvarenga, 1999 (the holotype and paratypes)

Agnopteridae Lambrecht, 1933
Agnopterus sicki Alvarenga, 1990 (the holotype and refered

Phorusrhacidae Ameghino, 1889
Paleopsilopterus itaboraiensis Alvarenga, 1985 (the holotype and paratype, type of the genus)


Fred
Click to expand...

Besides this, material of Diogenornis fragilis, Palaelodus cf. ambiguus (all known material), Brasilogyps faustoi (all known material), Eutreptodactylus itaboraiensis (if the missing type was still in the building) and Itaboravis elaphrocnemoides (all known material) are likely lost, along with much intederminate material of Paleogene and Quaternary age, including fossils that were not described properly or figured in the literature. What a disgrace!
 
RSN said:
Besides this, material of Diogenornis fragilis, Palaelodus cf. ambiguus (all known material), Brasilogyps faustoi (all known material), Eutreptodactylus itaboraiensis (if the missing type was still in the building) and Itaboravis elaphrocnemoides (all known material) are likely lost, along with much intederminate material of Paleogene and Quaternary age, including fossils that were not described properly or figured in the literature. What a disgrace!
Click to expand...

According to my data the holotype and some refered material of Diogenornis fragilis is in the Coleção de Paleontologia do Departemento Nacional da Produção Mineral, only some refered material was in the National Museum.

Where the material of Palaelodus cf. ambiguus is, I don't know.

Brasilogyps faustoi, I overlooked this species, so you are quit right

Eutreptodactylus itaboraiensis: the holotype is lost, the National Museum had a cast. But there might be more casts in other museums.

Itaboravis elaphrocnemoides also overlooked, the reason for this is that the collection code is MN, not MNRJ.

Fred
 
Fred Ruhe said:
According to my data the holotype and some refered material of Diogenornis fragilis is in the Coleção de Paleontologia do Departemento Nacional da Produção Mineral, only some refered material was in the National Museum.

Where the material of Palaelodus cf. ambiguus is, I don't know.

Brasilogyps faustoi, I overlooked this species, so you are quit right

Eutreptodactylus itaboraiensis: the holotype is lost, the National Museum had a cast. But there might be more casts in other museums.

Itaboravis elaphrocnemoides also overlooked, the reason for this is that the collection code is MN, not MNRJ.

Fred
Click to expand...

The material of Palaelodus cf. ambiguus was indeed in the same collection, and was described in the same paper of Agnopterus sicki (Alvarenga, 1990): MNRJ-4259-V, MNRJ-4260-V, MNRJ-4261-V, MNRJ-4262-V and MNRJ-4263-V.

The Paleogene indeterminate material included all the fragmented remains described by Mayr et al. (2011), in the same paper of Itaboravis elaphrocnemoides.

The Quaternary material included bones of Vultur gryphus (or possibly Pleistovulthur nevesi; Alvarenga, 1998), indeterminate Accipitriformes (Metello & Araújo Júnior, 2012) and Anodorhynchus glaucus or A. leari (Alvarenga, 2007).
 
Warning! This thread is more than 6 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top