Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Type: Article
Published: 2016-07-15
Page range: 381–391
Abstract views: 91
PDF downloaded: 51

Rediscovery of the 220-year-old holotype of the Banded Iguana, Brachylophus fasciatus (Brongniart, 1800) in the Paris Natural History Museum

Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, UMR 7205 (CNRS, EPHE, MNHN, UPMC; ISyEB: Institut de Systématique, Évolution et Biodiversité), CP 30 (Reptiles), 25 rue Cuvier, F-75005 Paris, France.
U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, San Diego Field Station, 4165 Spruance Road, Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92101-0812, U.S.A.
Reptilia Brachylophus fasciatus Brachylophus bulabula lost holotype MNHN-RA collections Wallis and Futuna Tonga Fiji Brongniart

Abstract

The Paris Natural History Museum herpetological collection (MNHN-RA) has seven historical specimens of Brachylophus spp. collected late in the 18th and early in the 19th centuries. Brachylophus fasciatus was described in 1800 by Brongniart but its type was subsequently considered as lost and never present in MNHN-RA collections. We found that 220 year old holotype among existing collections, registered without any data, and we show that it was donated to MNHN-RA from Brongniart’s private collection after his death in 1847. It was registered in the catalogue of 1851 but without any data or reference to its type status. According to the coloration (uncommon midbody saddle-like dorsal banding pattern) and morphometric data given in its original description and in the subsequent examination of the type in 1802 by Daudin and in 1805 by Brongniart we found that lost holotype in the collections. Another MNHN-RA specimen has Horn Islands (Wallis and Futuna) as the collection location but we show that most of the collections given to MNHN-RA by its collector, Louis Arnoux, have mixed localities in the MNHN-RA catalogues. We thus conclude that the locality is wrong and that the species never inhabited those islands located west of Western Samoa and north-east of Fiji.

 

References

  1. Anonymous (no date) Voyage de la Corvette "Le Rhin" aux îles du Pacifique (Nouvelle-Zélande, Tonga, Wallis, Marshall, Gilbert, Nouvelle-Calédonie) par un homme de l'équipage1842–1846. Archives number 332. Société des Sciences naturelles de Charente-Maritime, La Rochelle, 16 pp. [hand written notebook and typed text, not seen by the authors]

    Avery, D.F. & Tanner, W.W. (1970) Speciation in the Fijian and Tongan iguana (Sauria: Iguanidae) with the description of a new species. Great Basin Naturalist, 30, 166–172.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.5892

    Brongniart, A. (1800) Essai d’une classification naturelle des reptiles. Bulletin scientifique de la Société Philomatique de Paris, Ventose, an 8 de la république [3ème année, 2, n° 12 (36)], N° 36, 89–91, 1 pl.

    Brongniart, A. (1805) Essai d’une classification des reptiles. Baudouin, Imprimeur de l’Institut national, Paris, Prairial an XIII, 53 pp. + 2 pls.

    Brygoo, E.-R. (1989) Les types d’Iguanidés (Reptiles, Sauriens) du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. Catalogue critique. Bulletin du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, 4è série, 11, Section A, n° 3, Supplément, 1–112.

    Cardwell, M.D., Gotte, S.W., McDiarmid, R.W., Gilmore, N. & Poindexter, J.A. II (2013) Type specimens of Crotalus scutulatus (Chordata: Reptilia: Squamata: Viperidae) re-examined, with new evidence after more than a century of confusion. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 126 (1), 11–16.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.2988/0006-324X-126.1.11

    Ceriaco, L. & Bour, R. (2012) Chelonian types from the extinct eighteenth century Portuguese « Royal cabinet of natural history of Ajuda »; some contributions for their identification and nomenclatural implications. Zootaxa, 3395, 18–32.

    Cuvier, G. (1797) Eloge historique de Cl. A. Gaspard Riche. Société Philomatique de Paris, 13 décembre 1797, 377–424.

    Daudin, F.M. (1802) Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des Reptiles. Tome 4 & 5. F. Dufart éd., Paris, 452 pp., pls. XIX–XL, 397 pp.

    Duméril, A.M.C. & Bibron, G. (1837) Erpétologie générale ou Histoire naturelle complète des Reptiles. Tome 4. Libraire Encyclopédique Roret, Paris, 572 pp.

    Duméril, A.M.C. & Duméril, A. (1851) Catalogue méthodique de la collection des Reptiles. Gide et Baudry éd., Paris, 224 pp.

    Etheridge, R. (1982) Checklist of the Iguanine and Malagasy Iguanid Lizards. In: Burghardt, G.M. & Rand, A.S. (Eds.), Iguanas of the World. Their behavior, ecology and conservation. Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, New Jersey, pp. 7–37.

    Gibbons, J.R.H. (1981) The biogeography of Brachylophus (Iguanidae) including the description of a new species, B. vitiensis, from Fiji. Journal of Herpetology, 15 (3), 255–273.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1563429

    Gill, B. (1985) Notes on the land reptiles of Wallis and Futuna, South-West Pacific. Records of the Auckland Institute and Museum, 32, 55–61.

    Guibé, J. (1954) Catalogue des Types de Lézards du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. Imprimerie Colas, Bayeux, 120 pp.

    Hollingsworth, B.D. (2004) The evolution of iguanas: an overview of relationships and a checklist of species. In: Alberts, A.C., Carter, R.L., Hayes, W.K. & Martins, E.P. (Eds.), Iguanas: Biology and Conservation. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 19–44.

    ICZN (1991) Opinion 1647. Heteronota pelagica Girard, 1857 (currently Gymnodactylus, Cyrtodactylus or Nactus pelagicus; Reptilia, Sauria): given precedence over Gymnodactylus arnouxii Duméril, 1851. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, 48 (2), 185–186.

    Keogh, J.S., Edwards, D.L., Fisher, R.N. & Harlow, P.S. (2008) Molecular and morphological analysis of the critically endangered Fijian iguanas reveals cryptic diversity and a complex biogeographic history. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363, 3413–3426.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0120

    Pregill, G.K. & Steadman, D.W. (2004) South Pacific iguanas: Human impacts and a new species. Journal of Herpetology, 38, 15–21.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1670/73-03A

    Pregill, G.K. & Dye, T. (1989) Prehistoric extinction of giant iguanas in Tonga. Copeia, 1989, 505–508.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1445455

    Pregill, G.K. & Worthy, T.H. (2003) A new iguanid lizard (Squamata, Iguanidae) from the later Quaternary of Fiji, Southwest Pacific. Herpetologica, 59, 57–67.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1655/0018-0831(2003)059[0057:ANILSI]2.0.CO;2

    Serra-Tosio, B. (1996) Louis Arnoux (1814–1867), chirurgien de marine et voyageur-naturaliste grenoblois. Bulletin de la Société Dauphinoise d’Etudes Biologiques et de Protection de la Nature (BIO-CLUB), Grenoble, Nouvelle Série n° 24, 41–63.

    Troncoso-Palacios, J. & Garin, C.F. (2013) On the identity of Liolaemus nigromaculatus Wiegmann, 1834 (Iguania, Liolaemidae) and correction of its type locality. ZooKeys, 294, 37–56.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.294.4399

    Uetz, P. (Ed.) (2016) The Reptile Database, http://www.reptile-database.org (accessed 6 January 2016)

    Zug, G.R. & Ineich, I. (1993) Review of the biology and morphology of the Fijian bola, Ogmodon vitianus (Elapidae). The Snake, 25 (1), 9–20.