Catalogue of type specimens of birds in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa: Tuhinga 19

Tuhinga 19: 185-207

ABSTRACT: Type specimens of birds, including fossils, were deposited in the collections of the Museum of New ZealandTe PapaTongarewa (Te Papa) and its predecessor organisations from 1871 onwards. These are listed here for the first time.We have identified 69 primary type specimens, which are name-bearing specimens for 61 taxa, and 446 registered lots of secondary type specimens in the collections. In total, 73 names are based on these specimens. More than half of these names are now junior synonyms. The primary types of at least nine taxa, notably eight species named byWalter Buller, are missing. The remaining type specimens are now all labelled and conserved in line with the recommendations of the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature. Loss of types from the collection before 1914 reflected inadequate government funding of the national collections during the
first 50 years of the museum’s existence. 

KEYWORDS: type specimens, Aves, birds, catalogue, missing, museum, Te Papa, New Zealand.