Published March 15, 2019 | Version v1
Taxonomic treatment Open

Pinguinus impennis

Description

GREAT AUK Pinguinus impennis

Alca impennis Linnaeus, 1758

MZUT AV16261; mount; unsexed adult; Iceland, no date; from H. Vogt in 1832.

Remarks.—Giuseppe Gené (1800–47), Director of the Zoological Museum of Torino in 1831–47, purchased this specimen from a ‘Mr. Vogt’ in 1832 (Salvadori 1915). It is noteworthy that Fatio (1868a) cited a specimen of P. impennis present in Neuchâtel museum (Switzerland), purchased in Mannheim (Germany) in 1832, by the same dealer Henri (= Heinrich) Vogt. This supports the hypothesis of Symington (2015) under which Vogt may have obtained several skins of P. impennis from what is now the Zoological Museum of the University of Copenhagen. The Great Auk in Torino is listed as no. 55 in Fuller (1999), wherein he stated that it seems reasonable to suppose that this specimen is one of 24 birds taken on Eldey (Iceland) in 1831.

Even the specimen at the Museo Civico di Zoologia Roma came from the Copenhagen museum (in 1832), but its arrival in Italy was rather tortuous (Arrigoni degli Oddi 1914, Marangoni & Gippoliti 2011). Furthermore, Fatio (1868b) reported three other specimens in the museums of Firenze, Milano and Torino, as well as an incomplete skeleton in Firenze. Violani et al. (1984) mentioned a second specimen housed in Milano, but not the skeleton in Firenze.

Notes

Published as part of Ghiraldi, Luca & Aimassi, Giorgio, 2019, Extinct and endangered (' E & E') birds in the ornithological collection of the Museum of Zoology of Torino University, Italy, pp. 28-45 in Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 139 (1) on page 31, DOI: 10.25226/bboc.v139i1.2019.a2, http://zenodo.org/record/11637476

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Linked records

Additional details

Biodiversity

Scientific name authorship
Linnaeus
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Order
Charadriiformes
Family
Alcidae
Genus
Pinguinus
Species
impennis
Taxon rank
species
Taxonomic concept label
Pinguinus impennis (Linnaeus, 1758) sec. Ghiraldi & Aimassi, 2019

References

  • Salvadori, T. 1915. Notizie storiche intorno alla collezione ornitologica del Museo di Torino. Mem. della R. Accad. Sci. Torino (2) 65: 1 - 49.
  • Fatio, M. V. 1868 a. Quelques mots sur les exemplaires de l' Alca impennis, oiseaux et oeufs qui se trouvent en Suisse. Bull. Soc. Orn. Suisse 2: 73 - 79.
  • Symington, G. 2015. The Great Auk, or Garefowl: its history, archaeology, and remains. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  • Fuller, E. 1999. The Great Auk. Privately published, Southborough.
  • Arrigoni degli Oddi, E. 1914. Notizie sull'Alca maggiore. Riv. Ital. Orn. 3: 1 - 3.
  • Marangoni, C. & Gippoliti, S. 2011. I Savoia e la zoologia a Roma Capitale. Boll. Mus. Comunali Roma 25: 55 - 70.
  • Fatio, M. V. 1868 b. Liste des divers representants de l' Alca impennis en Europe, oiseaux, squelettes et oeufs. Bull. Soc. Orn. Suisse 2: 80 - 85.
  • Violani, C., Cagnolaro, L. & Daturi, A. 1984. Uccelli estinti e rari nei musei naturalistici di Milano, Genova e Firenze. Riv. Ital. Orn. 54: 105 - 178.