Alectoris chukar (1 Viewer)

[Norbert R.]

It is often quite difficult to get access to papers published in the former USSR in the decades from the 1920s to the 1960s. Only for the later decades of that period are there ornithological journals, and many papers were published in universal biological or scientific journals or in proceedings with limited distribution and small editions.
I am looking for the ODs of several taxa now generally considered synonyms of subspecies of Alectoris chukar described in such publications. Perhaps one of the members of this forum can help to get access to these descriptions, or can provide information on the type localities of the following taxa:

Alectoris graeca laptevi Dementiev, 1945 Isvest. Akad. Nauk Turkmenskoi SSR 5-6, p. 179
Alectoris graeca dementievi Rustamov, 1948 Okhrama Prir. 5, p. 107
Alectoris kakelik armenica Buturlin, 1933 Opreditel Promyslov. Ptits, p. 35

Any information is welcome; many thanks in advance.

 

[Mike Earp]

It is often quite difficult to get access to papers published in the former USSR in the decades from the 1920s to the 1960s. Only for the later decades of that period are there ornithological journals, and many papers were published in universal biological or scientific journals or in proceedings with limited distribution and small editions.
I am looking for the ODs of several taxa now generally considered synonyms of subspecies of Alectoris chukar described in such publications. Perhaps one of the members of this forum can help to get access to these descriptions, or can provide information on the type localities of the following taxa:

Alectoris graeca laptevi Dementiev, 1945 Isvest. Akad. Nauk Turkmenskoi SSR 5-6, p. 179
Alectoris graeca dementievi Rustamov, 1948 Okhrama Prir. 5, p. 107
Alectoris kakelik armenica Buturlin, 1933 Opreditel Promyslov. Ptits, p. 35

Any information is welcome; many thanks in advance.

Zoonomen gives the following fuller references to these ODs:

Alectoris graeca laptevi Dementiev, 1945
Dementiev, G.P. Novaya forma kamennoi kuropatki Alectoris graeca iz Turkmenii. [A new form of the Rock Partridge Alectoris graeca from Turkmenistan.] Izvest. AN Turkmenskoi SSR, 5-6: 178-179. See p. 179.

Alectoris graeca dementievi Rustamov, 1948
Rustamov, A.K. Novaya forma kamennoi kuropatki s Ust?-Urta. [A new form of the Rock Partridge from Ust?-Urt.] Okhrana prirodi, 5: 106-108. See p. 107.

Alectoris kakelik armenica Buturlin, 1933
Buturlin, C.A. Opreditel promyslovkh ptits (Key to the identification of gamebirds), 92 pp. See p. 35.

 

[l_raty]

Zoomet.ru gives the original refs (taken from Иванов 1977-92 -- Птицы СССР, библиографический указатель) as:

• Дементьев Г.П. Новая форма каменной куропатки Alectoris graeca: [laptevi] из Туркмении. // Известия Туркменского филиала АН СССР. 1946. № 3/4. С. 178-180.
• Рустамов А.К. Новая форма каменной куропатки с Усть-Урта // Охрана природы. 1948. Сб. 5. С. 106-108.
• Бутурлин С.А. Определитель промысловых птиц. М., Советская Азия, 1933. 91 /2/ с. (Центральное бюро краеведения РСФСР).

The originals may indeed not be straightforward to locate. (Central Asian publications tend to be still harder than those from Russia proper.)
Note the first ref is dated to 1946, not 1945.
'М.' in the third ref probably stands for 'Москва'. (I have searched for this work before without success.)
(There's a couple of errors in the Zoonomen transliterations -- omitted letters in some words; it should be "Buturlin S.A." in the Latin alphabet.)


Info from secondary source:

Dement'ev & Gladkov 1952 (Птицы Советского Союза, т. 4) treated these names as follows :

Кавказский кеклик Alectoris graeca caucasica Suschkin​

Alectoris chukar caucasica. Sushkin. Bull. B. O. Club., NCCCXVII, 1927, стр. 22. Ахалцых, Закавказье.

Синонимы. Alectoris graeca armenica. Бутурлин. Полный определитель птиц СССР, II, 1935, стр. 201, Карс, Арарат.— Alectoris graeca daghestanica Бутурлин. Птицы Северного Кавказа, 1929, стр. 12, Карабудахкент, Дагестан.

Западнотуркменский равнинный кеклик Alectoris graeca laptevi Dementiev​

Alectoris graeca laptevi Дементьев. Изв. Туркменского филиала АН СССР, No 5—6, 1945, стр. 178—179. Бугдайли, Туркмения.

Синоним. Alectoris graeca dementievi. Рустамов. Сборник "Охрана природы", No 5, Москва, 1948, стр. 106—108, колодец Кавешем, Юго-Западный Усть-Урт.

The localities associated to the names in the above were presumably (intended to be) the type localities.

Note that the source given here for armenica is different. (They may have regarded the 1933 publication as informal ?) The name was indeed flagged as a "subsp. nov." in Buturlin & Dement'ev 1935 (Полный определитель птиц СССР, II). The text there reads:

(69) Армянская каменная куропатка Alectoris kakelik armenica But., subsp. nov. (Алекторис какелик арменика).
Армянская каменная куропатка похожа на кавказскую, но слегка поярче и розоватый налет передней части спины распространяется также на внутренние из плечевых и второстепенных маховых, чего нет у предшествующей расы. Отличена по материалу Московского зоологического музея.
Населяет южные части Малого Кавказа (Карс) и северные части Армении (Арарат, Эрзерум); как далеко проникает в Армению и прилегающие части северо-западной Персии—не установлено.

 

[Norbert R.]

Thank you very much, Mike and Laurent!
Dementieff [sic] in his review of the Russian ornithological literature in Alauda 6 (1934: 130-131) provides details of Buturlin's book and cites Alectoris kakelik armenica from this source, on p. 35. Further new taxa described therein are Tetraogallus caspius tauricus (p. 29; apparently a homonym of T. tauricus Dresser, 1876) and Melanonyx serrirostris rossicus (p. 60).
Stepanyan (2003), in his Conspectus, dates A. k. armenica from 1935. It is well possible that the taxon was described twice, in 1933 and 1935, which was not unusual in that period. As Dementieff (1934) cites some diagnostic features of the new Chukar subspecies from Buturlin's book, I would accept 1933 as the OD of A. k. armenica.
It is very unfortunate that early publications from the former Soviet Union are so difficult to access. For meaningful revisions one is depending on original publications for information on the number of specimens on which descriptions are based, type specimens and their whereabouts, type localities and what comparisons the author(s) made with other taxa. It is to be hoped that Russian or Central Asian colleagues interested in avian taxonomy and nomenclature may help to resolve these questions. Much too long are western taxonomists ignoring these sources or are depending on secondary information provided in Russian handbooks and monographs. It is, however, possible that there are reprints of these rare USSR publications available in western museums and/or libraries that had good relations to Soviet institutions in that era. Any information would be helpful!

 

[l_raty]

About the types, you may be interested in this, p. 453, and this, pp. 110-111.

 

[Norbert R.]

About the types, you may be interested in this, p. 453, and this, pp. 110-111.

Indeed, very interesting and helpful.

However, we cannot be sure about the OD of armenica, as the type catalogue gives only information on the 1935 source (which should be Buturlin in Buturlin & Dementiev?), but treats Anser (Melanonyx) serrirostris rossicus from the 1933 book! Note the difference of the latter nomen to that cited by Dementieff (1934)! That's why depending on secondary sources is not really scientific. Also, the publication date of Dementiev's laptevi is always given as 1945, except in the Zoomet list. There is much work to be done for scholars on avian taxonomy and nomenclature.