On the mammals collected by Friedrich Sellow in Brazil and Uruguay (1814 – 1831), with special reference to the types and their provenance
Author
Garbino, Guilherme S. T.
Author
Nogueira, Marcelo R.
text
Zootaxa
2017
4221
2
172
190
journal article
37302
10.5281/zenodo.248623
1bdf89cc-ca41-4094-a65a-bf6c59ca96af
1175-5326
248623
35BBFC9F-A97E-4E08-A294-F8F6D381A7B7
Chiroderma villosum
Peters, 1860
(ZMB_MAM 408)
Peters
(1860)
described
Chiroderma villosum
based on two specimens: one female from
Brazil
(
ZMB
_MAM 408), and a skeleton of unknown provenance.
The
former specimen is a skin with the skull inside, but badly preserved; the skin color is faded, the inner pair of facial stripes are barely visible, and the only external measurement we were able to take was the forearm length, estimated in
47.9 mm
(right forearm).
The
distance between upper canines was
6.37 mm
.
The
skin around the lips had been retracted, so the teeth, up to M1 and m1, are visible, allowing us to identify the diagnostic parallel upper inner incisors (
Fig.
2
b, d).
Since
the skeleton could not be located (
Carter
and
Dolan
1978
,
Turni
and
Kock
2008
;
C. Funk
pers. comm. 2016), and because
Peters
described pelage and cranial characters of the specimen,
Turni
and
Kock
(2008)
designated
ZMB
_MAM 408 as the
lectotype
.
The
label on
ZMB
_MAM 408 reads “
Sao Paulo
Brasilien Sello”, but the catalogue, handwritten by
Peters
, mentions only
Brazil
(“Brasilia”), without any information on the collector (
Fig. 3
).
In
the original description of this taxon,
Peters
(1860:754)
stated that
Sellow
supposedly collected the
type
and reported only
Brazil
as its source.
Since
there is not enough evidence to narrow the
type
locality of this widely distributed taxon, we suggest keeping it as
Brazil
, as adopted by most authors (
e.g.
,
Carter & Dolan 1978
;
Simmons 2005
; Gardner 2008a).
We
also conclude, due to conflicting information (
i.e.
, label vs. catalogue), that there is not enough evidence to affirm that the
lectotype
was collected by
Sellow
.
Most
of the
Brazilian
mammals deposited in the
Museum
für
Naturkunde
during the first decades of the 19th century were collected by
Ignaz von Olfers
in
eastern Brazil
,
Friedrich Sieber
in the state of
Pará
,
Francisco Gomes
in
Bahia
, and
Sellow
, also in
eastern Brazil
(
Ávila-Pires 1967
).
Thus
, the
lectotype
could have come from any one of these collectors and the localities they visited.