Sarcoramphus sacer (Zimmermann)

Mlíkovský, Jiří, 2015, The type specimens, type localities and nomenclature of Sarcoramphus vultures (Aves: Cathartidae), with a note on their speciation, Zootaxa 3918 (4), pp. 579-586 : 581-582

Sarcoramphus sacer (Zimmermann)

Bartram (1791: 150) described from his travels in southeastern North America a vulture, which he called Vultur sacra . Most ornithologists accepted sacra as a valid species until the 1870s (e.g., Vieillot 1819: 458, Cassin 1853: 59, Sharpe 1874: 22, footnote), but subsequent authors (e.g., Ridgway 1887, Peters 1931, Hellmayr & Conover 1949: 4, Friedmann 1950: 17) did not recognize sacra as a taxon. Other authors (e.g., Yadav 2004: 44–46, Hume & Walters 2011: 329–330) were uncertain about its taxonomic status. Recently, Snyder and Fry (2013) resurrected sacra as a species, but left the authorship of the name, its type locality and type series unresolved.

The name Vultur sacra first appeared in Bartram (1791: 150, 289), but this work was correctly recognized as non-binominal and the names created by Bartram in it were declared not available for the purposes of zoological nomenclature ( Hemming 1955, ICZN 1957). McAtee (1942: 104) suggested that sacra should be attributed to Lesson (“1831” = 1830: 26; for the dating of Lesson’s work see Mathews 1911, 1925; Zimmer 1926; and Dickinson 2008, 2011). Friedmann (1950: 17) attributed sacra to Cassin (“1854" [= 1853]: 59), a view adopted by Snyder & Fry (2013: 75).

My search of literature showed that the name Vultur sacra should be attributed to Zimmermann (in Bartram 1793: 147, footnote). Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann (1743–1815), a German zoologist, translated Bartram's book into German, blamed Bartram for his ignorance of scientific literature and non-acceptance of Linnaean nomenclature and added, in footnotes, Latin binomina to those species described by Bartram which he (Zimmermann) recognized as new for science. His names added to Bartram's work are thus available for the purposes of zoological nomenclature, as first observed by Mathews (1914). Shortly after Zimmermann, the name Vultur sacra was also used by Meyer (1794: 288) in a manner required by the Code.

Although the species was described as “ Vultur sacra ”, the ending of the specific name should be corrected to sacer if combined with the generic names Vultur or Sarcoramphus , because the gender of both of these names is masculine and sacer is a classical Latin adjective, meaning sacred or holy (Art. 34.2 of the Code).

Zimmermann (in Bartram 1793) clearly based his sacer on the birds described by Bartram (1791: 150–152, 1792: 148–150, 1793: 147–149). Bartram reported on an unspecified number of birds of this species and mentioned that "the Creeks or Muscogulges construct their royal standard of the tail feather of this bird" ( Bartram 1791: 151; note the singular “feather”). Thus, the type series upon which Zimmermann (in Bartram 1793) based his Vultur sacer consists of an unspecified set of specimens and tail feathers.

Snyder and Fry (2013: 68–69) speculated that the feathers shown on the picture of "Mico Chlucco the Long Warrior" (see below for citations) might belong to Vultur sacer . Considering that Bartram (1791, 1792, 1793) did not refer to these specific feathers when he described the vulture, there is no basis for considering the feathers shown on the pictures of Long Warrior to be syntypes of Vultur sacer Zimmermann.

Harper (1936: 381) suggested that Bartram observed these vultures at St. John's River north of Lake George, Florida, because he (Bartram) reported on them in the corresponding part of his travelogue (see also Harper 1943: 165). Snyder & Fry (2013: 79) came to the same conclusion. Thus, this area, approximately corresponding with the modern-day Putnam County, Florida, can be considered the type locality of Vultur sacer Zimmermann.