Corvus, Linnaeus, 1758, 1758

Steinheimer, Frank D., 2009, The type specimens of Corvidae (Aves) in the Museum für Naturkunde at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, with the description of a new subspecies of Dendrocitta vagabunda, Zootaxa 2149 (1), pp. 1-49 : 7

C. [Corvus] splendidus M. H. C. Lichtenstein, 1823 : 21

TL: San Paulo Brasil [= State of São Paulo, Brazil].

Now Cyanocorax cristatellus ( Temminck, 1823) . See Sharpe 1877: 137, who synonymized the name with Corvus cyanoleucus Maximilian Prinz von Wied, 1820 .

SYNTYPES: ZMB 1512. [No sex or age given; adult by plumage]. Loc.: Brazil [São Paulo in Lichtenstein 1823]. Date: [not given; 1818–1819]. Coll.: Sello & Olfers. [Ex, Mus]. ZMB 1513 [specimen missing]. [No sex or age given]. Loc.: Brazil [São Paulo in Lichtenstein 1823]. Date: [not given; 1818–1819]. Coll.: Sello & Olfers. [Mount or Ex, A / R]. ZMB 1514. [No sex or age given; adult by plumage]. Loc.: Brazil [São Paulo in Lichtenstein 1823]. Date : [not given; collected in 1818–1819; acquisition date of the third consignment containing this bird (No. 62) was 8 th September 1820]. Coll.: Sello & Olfers. [Ex, Mus, Meise MS]. ZMB 1515. Juvenile. Loc.: Brazil [São Paulo in Lichtenstein 1823]. Date: [not given; 1818–1819]. Coll.: Sello & Olfers. [Ex, A /R; original ZMB label lacking].

COMMENTS: Corvus cyanoleucus Maximilian Prinz von Wied, 1820 , is preoccupied by Corvus cyanoleucus Latham, 1801 , today’s Grallina cyanoleuca . Therefore Blake & Vaurie (1962: 222) correctly used the next younger synonym, i.e. Corvus cristatellus Temminck, 1823 . Temminck’s text and plate 193 were published in Livraison 33 in April 1823 (cf. Dickinson 2001), Lichtenstein’s Verzeichniss not before September 1823 (i.e. the date of Lichtenstein’s foreword). ZMB 1515, the only juvenile bird in the ZMB collection, was found without any data, but preparation style and register data suggest its identity as a Sello & Olfers’ specimen. Friedrich Sellow (alias Sello) (1789–1831) and Ignaz Franz Joseph Maria von Olfers (1793–1872) joined each other on a Prussian state-funded expedition to the Brazilian provinces of Minas Geraes and São Paulo. Olfers was based in Brazil from 1817 until 1828 working as a sort of Prussian economy consultant. He later became the director in general of the ZMB. Sellow explored Brazil as a self-employed zoologist and short contract worker during several expeditions from 1814 until his early death in 1831. The specimens above are part of an expedition in the years of 1818 and 1819. Altogether the ZMB received 4931 Brazilian bird skins from Sellow, of which only 1634 specimens remained in 1854 after exchanges and sales arranged by Lichtenstein ( Gebhardt 1964: 264, 335).