Other than having a red label, type specimens differ from other museum specimens because they are the archetype – the one all others of the same species or subspecies are compared too.
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection Staff are thrilled to announce the repatriation of the type specimen of Spinus psaltria witti, a subspecies of Lesser Goldfinch collected on Maria Magdelena, Tres Marias Islands, Mexico. Dr. Peter Larkin, a former Dean of Graduate Studies at UBC, collected this specimen on March 1st 1961. Dr. Peter Grant, who is best known for his work on Galapagos Finches, described this subspecies when he was a PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia.
For the past few decades, this type specimen has been residing in our nation’s capital at the Canadian Museum of Nature. We wish to thank Michel Gosselin, Collection Manager, Vertebrate Section, for having taken such excellent care of it.
Ines Moran, a Work Learn Student working at the Cowan Tetrapod Collection had the privilege of photographing this exquisite male in breeding plumage. A dorsal and ventral view of UBCBBM-CTC specimen No. B010270 will soon be added to the museum avian database. All photographs include a scale and a colour corrector card.
Written by: Ildiko Szabo
Update: We’ve been asked what precipitated the specimen’s return to the museum. The following is our Tetrapod Director’s response, February 18, 2014:
Thalia Grant was watching a lesser goldfinch at her bird feeder a couple of years ago, and she then recalled that her father Peter Grant had described a type specimen of a subspecies of Lesser Goldinch many years ago when he worked at UBC. She then looked into the location of the specimen, found it was no longer in the UBC collections, and brought it to the attention of curators. We eventually tracked it down–it had been loaned to the Canadian Museum of Nature many years ago, and they have taken excellent care of it.