Browsing by Author "Vanzolini, P. E. (Paulo Emilio)"
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Item The herpetological collection of Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1782-1867), with special reference to Brazilian materials. (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 395)(American Museum of Natural History., 2015-06-26) Vanzolini, P. E. (Paulo Emilio); Myers, Charles W.; American Museum of Natural History. Department of Herpetology.Prince Maximilian of Wied made important collections of reptiles and other vertebrate animals during pioneering expeditions to Brazil and North America. These were purchased for the American Museum in 1869. The present paper emphasizes Brazilian materials collected in 1815-1817. Prince Maximilian (aka Wied, Neuwied, and Prince Max) published extensively on this collection, especially in the Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte von Brasilien ("Contributions to the natural history of Brazil, 1825-1833")--a meticulous account of the species collected--and in Abbildungen zur Naturgeschichte Brasiliens ("Illustrations of the natural history of Brazil, 1822-1832"). The unnumbered folio plates of the Abbildungen are so important, and so difficult to access, that the herpetological ones are resized and reprinted herein. These hand-colored plates are rare (only 300 of each were produced) and are reproduced herein "as is" with arbitrary plate numbers 1-56; this numbering approximates the organization of the present work and also the order of species presentation in volume 1 of the Beiträge. When received at AMNH, the herpetological specimens were accompanied by the Prince's handwritten manuscript list, dated 1860, with 441 numbered items. The list is not a specimen catalog but a useful index to the collection, as indicated by its title: Verzeichniss der Reptilien-Sammlung nach Duméril, Bibron, und Jan. It includes separately numbered lists of genera and of species in the collections and therefore corresponds to taxa, not to actual specimens. Wied did not designate types, a concept not yet established; Wied types, like Linnaean types, must be identified retrospectively. Our objective has been to identify the surviving types of Brazilian reptiles and amphibians in the Maximilian collection. Our starting point was forcibly the Beiträge, a work of singularly modern conformation. It may contain for each species a synonymy, a description, measurements, meristic data, and a discussion of distribution. The criteria for decision on the identification of types were fourfold: the description, the measurements, the scale counts, and the Abbildungen plates. A total of 21 primary type specimens were thus identified in the Wied collection (including some originally identified as types or cotypes). These include 15 holotypes (mostly newly identified) and six lectotypes (mostly newly designated). However, Wied had named about 61 species from his Brazilian collection, so approximately 40 primary type specimens of reptiles and amphibians are missing. Most of these never reached the American Museum; many had disappeared in Europe before Maximilian had started writing his 1860 manuscript catalogue. Wied wrote that he had been unable to preserve several specimens; some of the others may be in European museums or possibly in the remaining collection of his friend Blasius Merrem at the University of Marburg.Item Neusticurus ocellatus Sinitsin, 1930 : a valid species of teiid lizard from Bolivia. American Museum novitates ; no. 3123(New York, N.Y. : American Museum of Natural History, 1995) Vanzolini, P. E. (Paulo Emilio)"Comparison of the holotype of Neusticurus ocellatus Sinitsin, 1930, with 22 paratypes shows that two species are involved. Neusticurus ocellatus, type locality Rurrenabaque, Beni, Bolivia, is revalidated; the holotype is the only specimen assigned to it at present. The paratypes from Chanchamayo and Perené, Department of Junin, Peru, are assigned to Neusticurus ecpleopus Cope, '1876' [1875] (sensu Uzzell, 1966), which is considered to be a composite taxon not yet susceptible of dissection"--P. [1].Item Status of early 19th-century names authored in parallel by Wied and Schinz for South American reptiles and amphibians, with designations of three nomina protecta. (American Museum novitates, no. 3714)(American Museum of Natural History., 2011) Myers, Charles W.; Rodrigues, Miguel Trefaut Urbano.; Vanzolini, P. E. (Paulo Emilio)Prince Maximilian zu Wied's great exploration of coastal Brazil in 1815-1817 resulted in important collections of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, many of which were new species later described by Wied himself. The bulk of his collection was purchased for the American Museum of Natural History in 1869, although many "type specimens" had disappeared earlier. Wied carefully identified his localities but did not designate type specimens or type localities, which are taxonomic concepts that were not yet established. Information and manuscript names on a fraction (17 species) of his Brazilian reptiles and amphibians were transmitted by Wied to Prof. Heinrich Rudolf Schinz at the University of Zurich. Schinz included these species (credited to their discoverer "Princ. Max.") in the second volume of Das Thierreich ... (1822). Most are junior objective synonyms of names published by Wied. However, six of the 17 names used by Schinz predate Wied's own publications. Three were manuscript names never published by Wied because he determined the species to be previously known. (1) Lacerta vittata Schinz, 1822 (a nomen oblitum) = Lacerta striata sensu Wied (a misidentification, non Linnaeus nec sensu Merrem) = Kentropyx calcarata Spix, 1825, herein qualified as a nomen protectum. (2) Polychrus virescens Schinz, 1822 = Lacerta marmorata Linnaeus, 1758 (now Polychrus marmoratus). (3) Scincus cyanurus Schinz, 1822 (a nomen oblitum) = Gymnophthalmus quadrilineatus sensu Wied (a misidentification, non Linnaeus nec sensu Merrem) = Micrablepharus maximiliani (Reinhardt and Lütken, "1861" [1862]), herein qualified as a nomen protectum. Qualifying Scincus cyanurus Schinz, 1822, as a nomen oblitum also removes the problem of homonymy with the later-named Pacific skink Scincus cyanurus Lesson (= Emoia cyanura). The remaining three names used by Schinz are senior objective synonyms that take priority over Wied's names. (4) Bufo cinctus Schinz, 1822, is senior to Bufo cinctus Wied, 1823; both, however, are junior synonyms of Bufo crucifer Wied, 1821 = Chaunus crucifer (Wied). (5) Agama picta Schinz, 1822, is senior to Agama picta Wied, 1823, requiring a change of authorship for this poorly known species, to be known as Enyalius pictus (Schinz). (6) Lacerta cyanomelas Schinz, 1822, predates Teius cyanomelas Wied, 1824 (1822-1831)--both nomina oblita. Wied's illustration and description shows cyanomelas as apparently conspecific with the recently described but already well-known Cnemidophorus nativo Rocha et al., 1997, which is the valid name because of its qualification herein as a nomen protectum. The preceding specific name cyanomelas (as corrected in an errata section) is misspelled several ways in different copies of Schinz's original description ("cyanomlas," "cyanom las," and "cyanom"). Loosening, separation, and final loss of the last three letters of movable type in the printing chase probably accounts for the variant misspellings.Item Supplemental Material for 'The herpetological collection of Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1782-1867), with special reference to Brazilian materials. (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 395)'(2015-06-29) Vanzolini, P. E. (Paulo Emilio); Myers, Charles W.; American Museum of Natural History. Department of Herpetology.Supplemental Material for 'The herpetological collection of Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1782-1867), with special reference to Brazilian materials. (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 395)' - http://hdl.handle.net/2246/6594