Paradisea

Steinheimer, Frank D., 2005, The type specimens of Paradisaeidae, Cnemophilidae and Ptilonorhynchidae (Aves) in the Museum für Naturkunde of the Humboldt-University of Berlin, Zootaxa 1072 (1), pp. 1-25 : 20

Paradisea [sic] Augustae Victoriae Cabanis, 1888

Cabanis, J. (1888): Vorläufige Notiz über 2 neue Paradies­Vögel. Journal für Ornithologie 36(1): 119 [119; illustration in Journal für Ornithologie 1889: pl. II].

Now Paradisaea raggiana augustaevictoriae Cabanis, 1888 . See Frith and Beehler 1998: 459, Dickinson 2003: 518; Cracraft 1992: 36 upgraded the taxon to species level.

SYNTYPES: ZMB 29781. Adult male. Loc.: Finschhafen [Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea, 6°31' S, 147°50' E]. Date: [not given]. Coll.: Carl Hunstein. [Ex­mount; data on ZMB label] . ZMB 29782. Adult female. Loc.: Finschhafen. Date: [not given]. Coll.: Carl Hunstein. [ Exmount ; data on ZMB label] .

COMMENTS: Carl Hunstein (c. 1843–1888) explored New Guinea first in a search for gold, and later, after meeting the Scottish plant collector Andrew Goldie (fl. 1875–1891; cf. Sharpe 1906: 372), as a natural history collector for mainly British and Australian museums. From 1883 Hunstein collected for German institutions, the last trips for the benefit of the Berlin Museum, before being killed by a tidal wave in 1888. Mayr (1962b: 200) treated the taxon as a subspecies of apoda. In newer works it appears as a subspecies of raggiana or as a species in its own right. Frith and Beehler (1998: 459) erred in saying that the type specimens had been destroyed in WWII. In fact, except for a handful of mounted specimens from a few passerine families the ZMB hardly suffered any losses (all study skins survived), although many mounted specimens were heavily damaged by explosive shells and bombs that hit the museum ( Steinheimer 2003). These two birds comprise the type series.