Garrulus glandarius minhoensis Kleiner, 1939 : 185

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 : 10

Garrulus glandarius minhoensis Kleiner, 1939: 185

TL: Buge b. Tsanpo, Mien , Szetschwan [Mien = Mianyang, Fu Jiang River, Sichuan, 31°28’N, 104°46’E].

Now Garrulus glandarius sinensis Swinhoe, 1871 . See Vaurie 1959: 143, Blake & Vaurie 1962: 233, Dickinson et al. 2004b: 114.

HOLOTYPE: ZMB 25.1182. [No sex or age given; adult on plumage]. Loc.: Buge b. Tsanpo SW v. Wönntschwan a. Mien, Szetschwan [Mianyang, Sichuan]. Date: 2 January 1915 Coll.: Weigold, Stötznersche Szetschwan-Expedition. Remark: “gefl. Scheitel“ [maculated forehead] [S, Weigold label].

PARATYPE: ZMB 25.1180. Female [adult on plumage]. Loc.: Kwanhsien, Szetschwan [Sichuan; 31°00’N, 103°37’E]. Date: 23 January 1915. Coll.: Weigold, Stötznersche Szetschwan-Expedition. [S, Weigold label].

COMMENTS: Ernst Hartert (1859–1933), the curator of the Rothschild collection at Tring, was the first to draw attention to a darker variety of jays in the Tsinling and Yang-tse-kiang region, although without naming a taxon as he was aware of “lighter and darker specimens from various localities” ( Hartert 1918: 431). Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) added that Hartert’s Tsinling bird “although larger than the co[a]stal Chinese bird, does not materially differ in coloration” (cit. in Kleiner 1939: 214). Nevertheless, Kleiner (1939) later described the taxon as a new subspecies, although discussing its close similarity to G. g. sinensis. Several additional specimens from the same region at the ZMB show very similar characters to those given in the original description. These additional specimens were not mentioned in the original description by Kleiner despite the fact that they would have been at his disposal at the time. A male and an unsexed paratypes are found at the SMTD (C.23090, C.23094). The volume of Aquila for the years 1935/38 containing the original description has a printed publishing date of 30 November 1939 ( Aquila 1935 –1938: [ii]: “issued/distributed on 30th November 1939 ”). 2 According to the Zoological Record ( Aves) for 1941 ( Sclater 1942: 21), however, the issue of Aquila for the years 1935/38 was published in 1940, a date used inter alias by Blake & Vaurie (1962). 3 Reprints of this volume at the ZMB with own pagination are also dated on cover 1940. But in contrast to this, one reprint with the running pagination of the journal is dated 1939 (ZMB S.123.b.22, Schenk 1939, pp. 267–409). This confirms that the volume and reprints deriving from this volume directly were published in 1939, as indicated in the volume and on reprint covers, but separate reprints with own pagination were produced delayed in 1940 4. Hence the second date in use in Sclater (1942: 21) and Blake & Vaurie (1962: 233). The collector, Hugo Weigold (1886–1973), after joining Walther Stötzner’s Szetschwan-Expedition in 1913–1919, assembled during the remainder of his life a many hundred-page manuscript on the biogeography of Tibet, published posthumously in 2005, mainly based on ornithological data. Therein he also refers to this taxon: it was met at any altitude leaving the question open whether the holotype came from the Zangbo valley itself or the nearby mountains ( Weigold 2005: 297)—the village of Buge has not been traced.