scholarly journals Rediscovery of the type series of the Sacred Shrew, Sorex religiosus I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1826, with additional notes on mummified shrews of ancient Egypt (Mammalia: Soricidae)

Zootaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4341 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
NEAL WOODMAN ◽  
CLAUDIA KOCH ◽  
RAINER HUTTERER
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Nile Delta ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Type Series ◽  
Taxonomic History ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Small Collection ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Egypt

In 1826, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire described the Sacred Shrew, Sorex religiosus [= Crocidura religiosa] from a series of 22 embalmed individuals that comprised a portion of the Italian archeologist Joseph Passalacqua’s collection of Egyptian antiquities from an ancient necropolis near Thebes, central Egypt. Living members of the species were not discovered until the beginning of the 20th century and are currently restricted to the Nile Delta region, well north of the type locality. In 1968, the type series of S. religiosus was reported lost, and in 1978, a neotype was designated from among a small collection of modern specimens in the Natural History Museum, London. Our investigations have revealed, however, that the type series is still extant. Most of the specimens used by I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to describe S. religiosus still form part of the Passalacqua Collection in the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin, Germany. We summarize the taxonomic history of S. religiosus, review the history of the Passalacqua collection, and explain why the type series was thought to have been lost. We designate an appropriate lectotype from among the original syntypes of S. religiosus in the Ägyptisches Museum. Our examination of the shrew mummies in the Passalacqua collection also yielded a species previously unrecorded from either ancient or modern Egypt: Crocidura pasha Dollman, 1915. Its presence increases the number of soricid species embalmed in ancient Egypt to seven and provides additional evidence for a more diverse Egyptian shrew fauna in the archeological past. Finally, we provide details that will assist in better understanding the variety of mummification procedures used to preserve animals in ancient Egypt. 

Daily Encounters That Make History: History from Below and Archival Collaboration

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-143
Author(s):  
Hanan Hammad
Keyword(s):  
Nile Delta ◽  
Red Light ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Factory Worker ◽  
History Of Sexuality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Egypt ◽  
Red Light District

What does a casual confrontation in a rundown shack between a landlady and her factory-worker tenant tell us about the history of gender and class relations in modern Egypt? Could a lost watch in a red-light district in the middle of the Nile Delta complicate our understanding of the history of sexuality and urbanization? Can an unexpectedly intimate embrace on a sleeping mat illuminate a link in the history of class, gender, and urbanization in modern Egypt?

Cuban Corals in East Berlin’s Natural History Museum, 1967–74

2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Manuela Bauche
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reef ◽  
Natural History ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
History Museum ◽  
History Of

This essay reconstructs the history of a coral-reef diorama, the outcome of a German Democratic Republic expedition to Cuba, that was displayed in East Berlin’s Natural History Museum in 1967 on the occasion of the GDR’s twenty-fifth anniversary. The paper investigates how the practice of socialist internationalism influenced the diorama’s coming into being, arguing that while official diplomatic relations between Cuba and the GDR were a prerequisite for the expedition, nongovernmental contacts were central to both the initiation and execution of the project. It also demonstrates how the diorama’s display was informed more by national and institutional concerns than by the rhetoric and policies of internationalism.

Ceratopsia increase: history and trends

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dodson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
American Museum ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Taxonomic History ◽  
Peking University ◽  
History Of

The taxonomic history of the Ceratopsia began in 1876 with the description of Monoclonius crassus Cope followed in 1889 by Triceratops horridus Marsh. After a peak of discovery and description in the 1910s and 1920s resulting from the Canadian dinosaur rush in the province of Alberta and the Central Asiatic Expeditions to Mongolia of the American Museum of Natural History, the study of ceratopsians declined to a low level until the 1990s, when discoveries in China, Montana, Utah, Alberta, and elsewhere, abetted by increased biostratigraphic and phylogenetic precision, led to an unprecedented resurgence of activity. Even Richard C. Fox, along with colleagues from Peking University, joined in the activity, by naming Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis. To place the activity in historical perspective, half of all known ceratopsians have been described since 2003. Despite important finds of basal ceratopsians in China, Mongolia, and Korea, North America continues to dominate ceratopsian, especially ceratopsid, diversity.

scholarly journals History of the publishing activity of the State Natural History Museum of the NAS of Ukraine

2019 ◽  
pp. 157-160
Author(s):  
O. Klymyshyn
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Book Series ◽  
Publishing Activity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Collections

The publishing activity of the museum for the whole period of its existence is analyzed, starting from the first published in the museum by V. Didushitsky in 1880 and up to 2018 inclusive. Approximately this work is about 3.5 thousand publications, among which 84 monographs; 35 issues of the scientific miscellany "Proceedings of the State Natural History Museum"; 5 issues of the book series "Scientific Collections of the State Natural History Museum"; more than 50 catalogs of museum collections, thematic miscellanies, qualifiers, dictionaries and guides; about 2.2 thousand scientific articles; about 1 thousand materials and abstracts of reports of scientific conferences, as well as dozens of popular scientific articles, brochures and booklets.

scholarly journals Bats from Lebanon at the Natural History Museum, Vienna: a cautionary tale on the reliability of museum specimen data (Chiroptera)

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-43
Author(s):  
Petr Benda ◽  
Simon Engelberger
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Museum Specimen ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Rhinolophus Ferrumequinum ◽  
Myotis Myotis ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

Abstract Seven historical bat specimens of four species (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, R. mehelyi, Taphozous nudiventris, Myotis myotis), attributed to originate from the territory of the present-day Lebanon, are deposited and documented in the modern database of the mammal collection of the Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria (Naturhistorisches Museum Wien). Two of these species (R. mehelyi, T. nudiventris) have never been reported for Lebanon in the existing literature and recent surveys have also failed to find them in this country. Since these bats were collected in the period 1824–1885, the history of the all respective specimens was evaluated in detail. The revision brought rather unexpected results. Only one specimen (R. ferrumequinum) was found to come (most probably) from Lebanon, being collected by W. Hemprich and Ch. Ehrenberg in 1824. In the remaining six specimens, the origin could not be defined, thus rendering the statement that they were collected in Lebanon insecure. This case demonstrates that careful checks of modern interpretations of historical records are necessary when examining past distributions of organisms.

Science, to Understand the Abundance of Plants and Trees

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-102
Author(s):  
Semih Celik
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Medical College ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
European Technology ◽  
Different Parts

In the 1830s, a natural history museum and herbarium was founded in Istanbul, within the Ottoman Imperial Medical College complex in Galata Sarayı. The few accounts (mostly by botanists) written on the history of the establishment and management of the herbarium and museum consider its history in the context of the colonial ambitions of European actors and employ the concept of “westernization,” implying the asymmetrical influence of European technology, values and knowledge over the Ottoman realm, leading to the imitation and copying of European ways of imperial administration. This chapter, by contrast, argues that the first herbarium and natural history museum within Ottoman territories functioned as a hub where doctors, scientists, plant collectors and bureaucrats from the Ottoman Empire and from different parts of Europe (including Russia) formed an inter-imperial network to pursue scientific, but also political and economic interests. It emphasizes that relations in the network were characterized by conflict, cooperation and negotiation between different human and non-human actors. Relationships were dialectic rather than shaped by the asymmetries of westernization.

The hornless rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus inermis Lesson, 1836) discovered by Lamare-Picquot in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh in 1828, with notes on the history of his Asian collections

Mammalia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees Rookmaaker
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Georges Cuvier ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Ganges ◽  
A New Species ◽  
The Sundarbans

Abstract The French pharmacist and explorer Christoph-Augustin Lamare-Picquot (1785–1873) was in South Asia during 1826–1829 to collect ethnographical, anthropological, zoological and botanical specimens. He made an excursion to the Sundarbans (the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta) of Bangladesh, where on 17 November 1828 his team shot a female rhinoceros and caught her young one the next day, just south of Khulna. Both animals were completely hornless. He returned to France in the spring of 1830, where his zoological specimens were assessed by Georges Cuvier, and his other collections relating to ethnography by other scholars. All recommended purchase by the French Government, but circumstances did not allow this. A few animals were described by scientists connected with the Natural History Museum in Paris. After Lamare-Picquot published an account of the hunting expedition in 1835, the rhinoceros was described as a new species Rhinoceros inermis, by René-Primivère Lesson, first in a supplement to Buffon dated 1836, and not, as accepted until now, in restatements dating from 1838 or later. The main part of the zoological collection was bought by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III in 1836 and integrated in museums in Berlin. Other collections were exhibited as a “Panthéon Indien” in Vienna and Bratislava from 1838, until they were purchased by the Bavarian King Ludwig in 1841, and added to a museum in Munich. The type specimens of R. inermis are still preserved in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The adult female (ZMB_Mam_1957) was selected as the lectotype.

scholarly journals On a convenient terminology for the various stages of the malaria parasite

1902 ◽  
Vol 70 (459-466) ◽  
pp. 74-79
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Human Blood ◽  
Malaria Parasite ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
History Museum ◽  
General Morphology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reproductive Phases

I have found it necessary in labelling a series of models of the malaria parasite in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum to use as simple and clear a terminology as possible. I think that this terminology will be found useful by others who are perplexed by such terms as “sporozoites,” “blasts,” “ookinetes,” “schizonts,” “amphionts,” and “sporonts”—terms which have their place in schemes dealing with the general morphology and life-history of the group Sporozoa, but are not, as experience shows, well suited for immediate use in describing and referring to the stages of the malaria parasite. It is necessary to treat the malaria parasite from the point of view of malaria; that is to say, to consider its significant phases to be those which it passes in the human blood. In reality its mature condition and most important motile, as well as its most prolific reproductive, phases are passed in the body of the mosquito.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document