Chiroderma villosum Peters, 1860

Garbino, Guilherme S. T. & Nogueira, Marcelo R., 2017, On the mammals collected by Friedrich Sellow in Brazil and Uruguay (1814 – 1831), with special reference to the types and their provenance, Zootaxa 4221 (2), pp. 172-190 : 176-177

Chiroderma villosum Peters, 1860 (ZMB_MAM 408)

Peters (1860) described Chiroderma villosum based on two specimens: one female from Brazil ( ZMB _MAM 408), and a skeleton of unknown provenance. The former specimen is a skin with the skull inside, but badly preserved; the skin color is faded, the inner pair of facial stripes are barely visible, and the only external measurement we were able to take was the forearm length, estimated in 47.9 mm (right forearm). The distance between upper canines was 6.37 mm. The skin around the lips had been retracted, so the teeth, up to M1 and m1, are visible, allowing us to identify the diagnostic parallel upper inner incisors ( Fig. 2 b, d). Since the skeleton could not be located ( Carter and Dolan 1978, Turni and Kock 2008; C. Funk pers. comm. 2016), and because Peters described pelage and cranial characters of the specimen, Turni and Kock (2008) designated ZMB _MAM 408 as the lectotype .

The label on ZMB _MAM 408 reads “ Sao Paulo Brasilien Sello”, but the catalogue, handwritten by Peters , mentions only Brazil (“Brasilia”), without any information on the collector ( Fig. 3 ). In the original description of this taxon, Peters (1860:754) stated that Sellow supposedly collected the type and reported only Brazil as its source. Since there is not enough evidence to narrow the type locality of this widely distributed taxon, we suggest keeping it as Brazil, as adopted by most authors (e.g., Carter & Dolan 1978; Simmons 2005; Gardner 2008a). We also conclude, due to conflicting information (i.e., label vs. catalogue), that there is not enough evidence to affirm that the lectotype was collected by Sellow . Most of the Brazilian mammals deposited in the Museum für Naturkunde during the first decades of the 19th century were collected by Ignaz von Olfers in eastern Brazil , Friedrich Sieber in the state of Pará, Francisco Gomes in Bahia, and Sellow , also in eastern Brazil ( Ávila-Pires 1967). Thus, the lectotype could have come from any one of these collectors and the localities they visited.

Figures

FIGURE 2. Bats supposedly collected by Friedrich Sellow in eastern Brazil. a) Sturnira lilium (ZMB _ MAM 412), mistakenly labeled as the type of Phyllostoma spiculatum Lichtenstein; b) Lectotype of Chiroderma villosum (ZMB _ MAM 408); c) Lectotype of Uroderma bilobatum (ZMB _ MAM 411); d) detail of the anterior dentition of ZMB _ MAM 408; e) detail of the anterior dentition of ZMB _ MAM 411 (Photo: Hwa Ja Götz). White scale bar = 10 mm, graduated bar = 1 mm each division.

FIGURE 3. Page of ZMB mammal collection catalog, handwritten by Wilhelm Peters, with the entries for the three bat specimens supposedly collected by Friedrich Sellow in eastern Brazil (ZMB _ MAM 408, 411, 412). The asterisk denotes type material.