Corvus Kubaryi Reichenow, 1885 : 110

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 : 25

Corvus Kubaryi Reichenow, 1885: 110

TL: Pelau-Inseln [= Palau Islands]; questionably corrected to Guam (Mariana Group) and the Caroline Islands ( Meinertzhagen 1926: 73) and restricted to Guam by Blake & Vaurie (1962: 265), but see comments below.

Now Corvus kubaryi Reichenow, 1885 . See Meinertzhagen 1926: 73, Blake & Vaurie 1962: 265, Madge & Burn 1999: 144–145, Dickinson 2003: 513.

HOLOTYPE: ZMB 27719 [individual number on acquisition B.18768]. [No sex or age given]. Loc.: Pelau Inseln [see below]. Date: [not given; most likely 1884–1885]. Coll.: Kubary. [Ex, Mus, Meise MS; one wing missing (already noted by Meise in the MS of 1949/50)].

COMMENTS: The original description does not indicate the number of specimens consulted. However, the ZMB, and therefore Reichenow , received a single specimen only, acquired from Johann Stanislaus Kubary (1846–1896). Kubary explored the Pacific on behalf of Johann Cesar Godeffroy (1813–1885) of Hamburg , called en route at Tonga, stayed several months on Savai’i ( Samoa) during 1869, moved for three months in the summer of 1870 to Ebon Atoll in the Southern Ralik Chain ( Marshall Islands), and arrived on Yap in autumn 1870. By January 1871 he had moved on to the Palau Islands (recorded visits are to Peleliu, Koror, Earakong , Stony Rocks , Aremolunguj ) where he stayed for the next 3 years ( Gebhardt 1964: 201). In August 1873 he shipped to the Nukuoro-Atoll (Federated States of Micronesia), followed by a longer stay on Ponapé [= Pohnpei] until late August 1874. Kubary then planned to return to Hamburg via Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Samoa. Off the island of Jaluit ( South Marshall Islands) he lost most of his over 100 crates of collections in a ship wreck, and was forced to stay on Jaluit until December 1874 when he got the opportunity to travel to Auckland , arriving in Hamburg in May 1875 after some delay. He returned to the South Seas by autumn of 1875, and arrived in Samoa in 1876, and on Pohnpei in 1877. In the following years he studied the inhabitants and natural history of several of the smaller Carolines (recorded are visits to Nukuoro-Atoll , Mortlock Islands and Satawan , and Truk = Chuuk). After the bankruptcy of Godeffroy’s trade emporium in 1879, he had to make a living from his plantations on Pohnpei. However , because of financial pressures he left Pohnpei for Japan in the vain hope of working for the Yokohama School of Commerce (he also sought employment in Hong Kong and Guam), so he returned to Palau and stayed until 1884, where he collected for a spell for the RMNH. Between 1884 and 1885 Kubary was employed by the Ethnographic Museum of Berlin , working mainly on Yap , Sorol (both in the Western Carolines ), St. David (not traced) and Merir (Sonsorol State, South Palau Islands ). He then joined the German Navy as an interpreter fostering Germany’s colonial ambitions on Palau, Yap , Uleai [= Woleai], Chuuk , Pohnpei , Pingelap and Kusaie [= Kosrae], and Matupi near New Britain where he remained until at least 1886 ( Scheps 2005: 117–130). Stresemann [handwritten remark in register] corrected the type locality to Guam, Mariana Islands. However , Kubary only visited Guam on his job search in 1882, and it is unlikely that any specimen of this trip would have been forwarded to the ZMB (rather than to the RMNH, his subsequent employer). The holotype most likely arrived at the ZMB during Kubary’s employment by the Ethnographic Museum of Berlin in the years 1884 to 1885 (however, without any trace of the specimen in the archival records of the ZMB), and during this time he exclusively worked in the Western Carolines and Palau, but not on Guam (nor on Rota where the species currently is also found). Reichenow (1885: 110) defined the term “Pelau-Inseln” as located south of the Mariana Islands as the most western extension of the Carolines south of Uliti [= Ulithi] and Eap [= Yap], and as spreading from Gilolo [= Sulawesi] to the north-east; thus he indeed referred to the Palau Islands as such. Either the specimen was bought by Kubary from other collectors visiting Guam or Rota, or the species was once distributed on other Pacific islands , then most likely including Yap.