Taxacom: Freiburg i. B. Museum curator

[Adam Cotton]

Dear Taxacomers,

Martin Wiemers very kindly cc'd me in an e-mail to the curator.

Adam.


On 07/05/2024 19:25, Adam Cotton via Taxacom wrote:
> Taxacomers,
>
> Please can someone send me the contact details for the entomology 
> curator at the museum in Freiburg im Breislau, S Germany, preferably 
> the resident lepidopterist if there is one. Alternatively please send 
> this e-mail to the relevant curator to reply to me, thank you.
>
> The sole syntype of Papilio bianor okinawensis Fruhstorfer, 1898 [no 
> holotype designated in the original description] was obtained by Dr. 
> Adolph Fritze in Okinawa and should be housed in the Freiburg Museum.
>
> However, there is a 'type' specimen in NHM, London, with Fruhstorfer 
> type labels which comes from Ishigaki (the southernmost part of the 
> Ryukyu Island chain). This is clearly not the specimen described in 
> 1898 and actually belongs to a different species. Fruhstorfer stated 
> in 1899 that he had received a series from Ishigaki, and obviously put 
> type labels on one of his Ishigaki specimens.
>
> I have traced 'Dr. Adolph Fritze' to this zoologist:
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.freiburg.de%2Fpb%2F%2CLen%2F1175861.html&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C3d9f0139132c42eb7ed608dc6e9721bc%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638506842585250089%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SXjD%2BIcegeMQGrZAM0rJ2dMLFjDblvpuCXsCpsgjY4c%3D&reserved=0
> and his collection should hopefully still be in the museum there.
>
> If the Okinawa syntype specimen can be located and photographed I 
> propose designating it as the lectotype, since the Okinawa (and Amami 
> Islands) populations have been shown to represent a distinct species, 
> currently using a 1975 synonym as the valid name.
>
> I can send photos of a similar Okinawa specimen to the curator at the 
> museum in Freiburg i. B. in order to make it easy for him/her to find 
> the type specimen. I tried to find staff details via the museum 
> website, but they do not seem to have this information online so 
> decided to ask Taxacom for assistance.
>
> Thank you very much,
> Adam Cotton.
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