Type specimens of Birds in the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali (Torino, Italy)

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali di Torino houses the ornithological collection formerly belonging to the Zoological Museum of the University of Turin (MZUT). This collection includes about 20,500 specimens, mostly dating from the second half of the nineteenth century or early twentieth. The high number of type-specimens gives it great historical and scientific significance. The types have been described mainly by Tommaso Salvadori (171 taxa, 282 specimens) and, to a lesser extent, by other Italian authors such as Enrico Festa, Filippo de Filippi, Orazio Antinori, Enrico H. Giglioli or by foreign authors as John Gould, Eduard Rüppell, Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Philip L. Sclater, Robert Swinhoe.