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Discovery of a Rare Hybrid Specimen Known As Maria's Bird of Paradise At Zoosyst. Evol. 94 (2) 2018, 315–324 | DOI 10.3897/zse.94.25139 Discovery of a rare hybrid specimen known as Maria’s bird of paradise at the Staatliches Naturhistorisches Museum in Braunschweig André Koch1,2 1 Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn 2 formerly at Staatliches Naturhistorisches Museum, Pockelsstraße 10, 38106 Braunschweig http://zoobank.org/F4B68400-566A-47D9-B3BF-61937E3D7867 Corresponding author: André Koch ([email protected]) Abstract Received 19 March 2018 The discovery of a rare hybrid specimen of Maria’s bird of paradise (Paradisaea maria, Accepted 15 May 2018 i.e., P. guilielmi × P. raggiana augustaevictoriae) in the ornithological collection of the Sta- Published 31 May 2018 atliches Naturhistorisches Museum in Braunschweig (SNMB) is reported. Until today only six male specimens (deposited in the natural history museums in Berlin and New York) and Academic editor: presumably one female have been identified in collections world-wide. The male specimen Peter Bartsch in Braunschweig corresponds well in its plumage colouration with an historical illustration and photographs of the original type specimen from the 19th century housed at the Ber- Key Words lin collection. It shows intermediate characteristics between both parental species, viz. the Emperor bird of paradise (P. guilielmi) and the Raggiana bird of paradise (P. raggiana au- Paradisaea maria gustaevictoriae). In addition, we try to elucidate the circumstances how this rare specimen Ornithology of hybrid origin, which formerly belonged to the natural history collection of the factory Natural history collections owner Walter Behrens from Bad Harzburg, came to the SNMB. Our unexpected discovery New Guinea highlights the importance to maintain, support and study also smaller private natural history Type specimens collections, since they may house historical voucher specimens of high scientific value. Hybridisation Private collector Zusammenfassung Walter Behrens Haus der Natur Es wird über die Entdeckung eines seltenen Exemplars des Hybrid-Paradiesvogels Paradi- saea maria (d.h. Paradisaea guilielmi × P. raggiana augustaevictoriae), in der ornitholo- gischen Sammlung des Staatlichen Naturhistorischen Museums in Braunschweig (SNMB) berichtet. Bis heute sind lediglich sechs männliche (aus den Museen in Berlin und New York) und vermutlich ein weibliches Exemplar in internationalen Naturkundesammlungen bekannt geworden. Das männliche Exemplar aus Braunschweig entspricht in seiner Ge- fiederfärbung einer historischen Abbildung und Fotos des ursprünglichen Typusexemplars aus dem 19. Jahrhundert, das sich im Berliner Museum befindet. Es zeigt deutlich inter- mediäre Merkmalsausprägungen zwischen den beiden Elternarten, dem Kaiserparadies- vogel (P. guilielmi) und dem Raggi-Paradiesvogel (P. raggiana augustaevictoriae). Die Umstände, wie dieser seltene Hybrid-Paradiesvogel, der ehemals Teil der Sammlung des Fabrikanten Walter Behrens aus Bad Harzburg war, in die SNMB-Sammlung gelangte, werden erläutert. Unsere unerwartete Entdeckung unterstreicht die Bedeutung, auch klei- nere private naturkundliche Sammlungen zu bewahren, zu erhalten und zu erforschen, da sie historische Belegexemplare von hoher wissenschaftlicher Bedeutung enthalten können. Copyright André Koch. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 316 Koch, A.: Discovery of a rare hybrid specimen known as Maria’s bird of paradise Introduction Maria’s bird of paradise Hardly any other group of birds has ever since their first discovery exalted the imagination of people as the birds of paradise (family Paradisaeidae). Due to their mainly colourful and conspicuous plumage, birds of paradise have been most admired commodities since the early 16th century. They were discovered and specifically collected for the domestic demand in curiosities of natural history and exotics by European circumnavigators during their adventurous journeys to the Indo–Australian Archipela- go (Stresemann 1954, Swadling 1996). Although known long before binary nomenclature was consistently used since the mid-18th century (Mužinić et al. 2009), the first bird of paradise species, which was formally described by Linnaeus (1758), was the Greater bird of paradise (Paradisaea apoda). In the following decades, more and more members of this fascinating bird family were dis- covered and described. In 1894, Anton Reichenow (1847–1941), then or- nithologist and deputy director of the Museum für Naturkunde (= Museum of Natural History) in Berlin, de- scribed another new species, P. maria, based on a single male specimen from the Finisterre Mountain Range of the Huon Peninsula in north–eastern New Guinea, dedicat- ing the species epithet to his wife Maria (the daughter of J. L. Cabanis, see below). Three years later, Reichenow (1897, pl. V) published an artistic plate of Maria’s bird of paradise (Fig. 1). Some years earlier, Jean Louis Cabanis (1816–1906), then director of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, had described two new species of birds of paradise (Cabanis 1888), viz. P. guilielmi and Figure 1. Plate of the male hybrid bird of paradise Paradisaea P. augustaevictoriae (Fig. 2a, b), in honour of the last maria from Reichenow (1897). Reproduced from the Biodiver- German Emperor and King of Prussia, Wilhelm II (1859– sity heritage library (http://biodiversitylibrary.com/). 1941), and his wife Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Hol- stein (1858–1921). Illustrations of both majestic birds of For the family Paradisaeidae, with currently 42 recog- paradise were published the following year in volume 37, nized members (the last was described in 1992), so far plates 1 and 2, of the Journal für Ornithologie (nowadays 25 hybrid combinations have been identified (Table 1), the Journal of Ornithology). While the Raggiana bird of most of which were described as separate species in paradise (of which the taxon augustaevictoriae is consid- the past (Fuller 1995, Frith and Beehler 1998, Lepage ered a subspecies today) is widespread in the South and 2015). Based on the phylogenetic species concept even Northeast of Papua New Guinea, the Emperor bird of par- approximately 90 different species of paradisaeids were adise is restricted to the Huon Peninsula, where it inhabits postulated by Cracraft (1992). This conceptual approach, lower mountains and hills from ca. 450 m to 1,500 m. however, is currently not accepted (Lepage 2015). No- Below this altitude, P. guilielmi is replaced by the Raggi- tably, Mayr (1945, 1963) assumed that one in every ana bird of paradise in the East of its range, where both 20,000 wild specimens of birds of paradise is a hybrid species occur sympatrically (Frith and Beehler 1998). (i.e. 0.005%), while for birds in general he considered only one in every 60,000 specimens to be of hybrid or- Hybridisation in birds of paradise igin (i.e. <0.002%). Frith and Beehler (1998), however, Hybridisation between different bird species is a relative- judged Mayr’s assumption “as no more than an informed ly common phenomenon. So far about 4,000 combina- guess”. Among almost 5,000 voucher specimens of birds tions of hybrid origin have been identified, about half of of paradise these authors examined, more than 88 male which are crossbreedings in captivity (Mc Charty 2006). and merely three female hybrid specimens (i.e. about According to this author, however, the total number of 2%) were identified (Table 1). hybridisations in birds is estimated to be much higher, Reichenow (1901) himself was among the first authors since hybrid specimens are usually difficult to identify. to speculate about the putative hybrid origin of one of zse.pensoft.net Zoosyst. Evol. 94 (2) 2018, 315–324 317 Figure 2. Plates of Paradisaea guilielmi (A) and P. raggiana augustaevictoriae (B), the presumed parental species of P. maria, related to the original descriptions by Cabanis (1888). Reproduced from the Biodiversity heritage library (http://biodiversitylibrary.com/). the species he himself had previously described (see also A dubious taxon phenotypically very similar to P. ma- Rothschild 1898). Subsequently, Rothschild (1910) and ria is P. duivenbodei described by Ménégaux (1913a, b). Stresemann (1923: 40) suggested, that also P. maria is a Until today, it is known only from a single male speci- hybrid form between P. guilielmi und P. (raggiana) au- men, the holotype MNHN 863, in the Muséum National gustaevictoriae. The latter discussed a second specimen d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. It has “(…) brown upper- from the Berlin museum (ZMB 951) that was allegedly tail coverts not marked with straw yellow streaking and collected by Dr Bürgers during the German Empress Au- its flank plumes are more yellow than red (…)” (Frith gusta (now Sepik) River Expedition in 1912–1913. Sub- and Beehler 1998). Walter Rothschild had examined the sequently, however, Stresemann (1925) corrected that the type specimen in Paris and expressed his doubt about original label of this voucher specimen had been mixed the taxonomic validity of P. duivenbodei to his French up and that it was actually collected by H. Andechser, a colleague. In turn, Ménégaux (1913c) again discussed planter from Singana, at the southern slopes of the Herzo- in detail the minor morphological differences of his new ggebirge (the Herzog mountains) south of Lae at the
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