MillliwiiiiuiHiiiiHiw SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 220 WASHINGTON, D.C. 1961 Type Specimens m the U.b. INatioiial iVliiseum By DORIS M. COCHRAN Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians United States National Museum Publications of the United Slates National Museum The scientific publications of the United States National Museum include two series, Proceedings of the United States National Museum and United States National Museum Bulletin. In these series are published original articles and monographs dealing with the collections and work of the Museum and setting forth newly ac- quired facts in the fields of Anthropology, Biology, Geology, History, and Technology. Copies of each publication are distributed to libraries and scientific organizations and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. The Proceedings, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in separate form, of shorter papers. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume. In the Bulletin series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related subjects. Bulletins are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on the needs of the presentation. Since 1902 papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum have been published in the Bulletin series under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbarium. This work forms number 220 of the Bulletin series. Remington Kellogg, Director, United States National Museum. UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1961 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Governnient Printing 0£Bce Washington 25, D.C. - Price $1.25 Contents Page Introduction Vii Class Amphibia 3 Order Gymnopiona 3 Order Caudata 4 Order Salientia 29 Class Reptilia , 81 Order Squamata 81 Suborder Sauria 81 Suborder Serpentes 157 Order Testudines 227 Order Loricata 236 Index 237 V Introduction As biologists know, an important function of a natural history museum is the preservation of those specimens from which new forms of life are described. Many museums have collections of such type material, the National Collection, in the United States National Museum, being among the largest. The value of such specimens is equally obvious since they serve as a standard with which later field collections can be compared, in order to validate the original claim to novelty and to establish the range and variation of the form. A published list of the type material in the national collection of reptiles and amphibians is especially useful because of the intensive study being given these forms today. The present list gages the extent of the collection and makes known what is available to researchers; it provides a reference to the sources containing the names and original descriptions of the forms repre- sented; and it complements similar lists issued by other museums. Some of these lists are: Barbour, T., and Loveridge, A. Typical reptiles and amphibians. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 69, pp. 205-360, 1929; supplement, vol. 96, pp. 59-214, 1946. GuiBE, J. Catalogue des types d'amphibiens de Museeum d'Histoire Naturelle, 71 pp., 1949. Leviton, a. E. Catalogue of the amphibian and reptile types in the Natural History Museum of Stanford University. Hei'petologica, vol, 8, pp. 121-132, 1953; supplement by A. E. Leviton and B. H. Banta, vol. 12, pp. 213-219, 1956. Marx, H. Catalogue of type specimens of reptiles and amphibians in the Chicago Natural History Museum. Fieldiana: Zoology, vol. 36, pp. 409-496, 1958. Peters, J. A. Catalogue of type specimens in the herpetological collections of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Occ. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, No. 539, 55 pp., 1952. Slevin, J. R., and Leviton, A. E. Holotype specimens of reptiles and amphibians in the collection of the California Academy of Sci- ences. Proc. California Acad. Sci., series 4, vol. 28, pp. 529-560, 1956. The national collection had its beginnings over a century ago. A brief review of its history, prior to indicating the content and arrangement of this list, seems appropriate. vu Vni INTRODUCTION James Smithson's legacy for the establisliment of an institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men" resulted in Congress' pass- ing a bill in 1846 for the incorporation of the Smithsonian Institution. With the appointment of Dr. Spencer FuUerton Baird as Assistant Secre- tary in 1850, announcement was made of the gathering of a collection of natural history objects. Dr. Baird's personal collection, deposited in the Smithsonian Institution in that year, was the forerunner of numerous other collections that began to arrive soon afterward. The Smithsonian encour- aged such donations by distributing instructions on how to collect and pre- serve natural history materials and by sponsoring or assisting various exploring expeditions. Reptiles and amphibians were represented in these early collections. As the materials were received and cataloged, they were assigned to specialists for identification and description, and duplicate material received was given to or served as the basis of exchange with other institutions at home and abroad. Much of this early material collected and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution issued from the 19th-century exploring expeditions abroad, and from the land surveys of the West. Perhaps earliest of these was the U.S. Exploring Expedition, commanded by Charles Wilkes, which sailed on its round-the-world voyage in 1838, touching at African, South American, Antarctic, Asian, and western North American coasts. Natural history ob- jects were collected near the coast at every stop. In 1842 the expedition returned with most of its collections intact. The materials, at first deposited in the U.S. Patent Office, were in 1857, along with specimens collected by other expeditions, turned over to the Smithsonian Institution. Many of the animals secured on this journey represented forms as yet unknown to science and hence were in need of a scientific name and a description. Dr. Baird and his friend and colleague, Dr. Charles Girard, wrote several papers on the herpetological results of this expedition. Dr. Girard's later book and atlas became classics. The La Plata Expedition, under the command of Thomas Jefferson Page, from 1853 through 1856 explored and mapped the tributaries of the La Plata River and the adjacent countries of Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia. Zoological collections were made, and subsequent study yielded additional new forms of animal life. In 1853 the U.S. Army Engineers, directed to find a "practicable and economical" route for the first railroad to be laid from the Mississippi to the Pacific, surveyed five possible routes between the 32d and 49th parallels. Collections of animals, plants, and minerals were made at every opportunity, and these excellent representations of the natural history of a vast part of the West eventually came to be deposited in the Smithsonian Institution. In 1854 began the work of the commission headed by Major William H. Emory to survey lands to establish a permanent U.S.-Mexican boundary. The reptiles and amphibians of the boundary were listed by Dr. Baird in 1859, following earlier preliminary descriptions of new species by him and others. INTRODUCTION IX Many new forms were described from "Indianola," a town no longer existing but formerly located in what is now Calhoun County, Texas. Collecting was equally abundant in some other regions visited by boundary surveyors. Among the members of the various groups, tlie names of J. H. Clark and D. N. Couch are perhaps more often found than others, a fact indicating their ability first to track down and catch the smaller, less conspicuous creatures, then to preserve, label, and dispatch them in boxes for the long journey east. The geographical and geological explorations and surveys of lands west of the 100th meridian, begun in 1869 and continued through 1879, each year followed a different route. In order to scour the areas of greatest promise and to estimate rainfall, soil conditions, temperatures, and other natural conditions that might influence the success or failure of future agricultural ventures, the parties were subdivided. Some who went with these expeditions later acquired considerable fame in science—among others, Coues, Yarrow, and Cope. Many of the new species secured by these men were later also named and described by them. Institutions and persons in foreign lands donated or exchanged many specimens. The Jardin des Plantes of Paris in 1858 sent specimens that had been collected in the Old World and that had been studied by Dumeril and Bibron, two of the foremost herpetologists in Europe at the time. Part of the Bonaparte collection, received in 1869, contains European material still valuable for comparison. Felix Poey, a Cuban scholar and naturalist of renown, in 1856 began sending reptiles and amphibians of Cuba, and continued to do so throughout his life. Much collecting was the work of enthusiastic amateurs from the United States wishing to fill in the blank spaces on the faunal maps of the world. Such collecting continues today. John Xantus de Vesey (J. Xantus), U.S. Consul stationed in Baja California in 1859, and in Colima in 1863, was a noteworthy collector. One of the defects of many 19th-century collections was the frequent lack of precise locality data, and Xantus' material from Mexico is worthy of mention for the care he took in numbering every speci- men and entering the locality for each number in one of his numerous letters to officials at the Smithsonian. W. L. Abbott of Philadelphia, a world traveler and sportsman, early in life took a keen interest in securing all kinds of exotic animals for the national collection.