Corvus salvadorii Finsch, 1884b : 109

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 : 29

Corvus salvadorii Finsch, 1884b: 109 [separate 28]

TL: Port Moresby [in New Guinea; 9°28’S, 147°13’E].

Now Corvus orru orru Bonaparte, 1850 . See Meinertzhagen 1926: 85, Blake & Vaurie 1962: 275, Dickinson et al. 2004b: 125.

PARATYPE: ZMB 26971 [individual acquisition number B.17989]. Adult female. Loc.: Port Moresby , New Guinea. Date: 10. April [1879–1882]. Coll.: Otto Finsch No. 1280. [Ex, Mus].

COMMENTS: Three paratypes from D’Albertis collection exist in the Genoa museum (MSNG: C.E. 11936- 11938, one female, one male and one indet, Yule Island, SE New Guinea, 20 March, 11 June and October 1875; Arbocco et al. 1979: 249, therein erroneously as syntypes). According to a hand-written remark of Carlo Violani (in litt. June 2007), paratypes are also found in Milan museum (MSNM). The holotype is at the NMW ( Dickinson et al. 2004b: 125, 134). Otto Finsch (1839–1917) was already a well-known ornithologist and taxonomist before he left for New Guinea in 1879, being involved in establishing the German protectorate Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land in 1884. In December 1882 the first large consignment of birds were given to the ZMB. Among the specimens donated to Berlin was the Corvus orru orru from Port Moresby. However , in the original description Finsch (1884b) cited a collection number 1255 which was given to the bird now at the NMW, not 1280 of the ZMB specimen. Finsch (1884a), in his foreword to the series of papers on the ‘birds of the South Seas’ , indicated that all specimens mentioned in the descriptions had been collected by himself. The sequence of numbers given in the publications shows clearly that the cited numbers are collection numbers and not reference numbers to species. Therefore the ZMB bird is, as those in the MSNG and MSNM, just a paratype. For the dating of Bonaparte’s name I follow Zimmer (1926: 68–69).