New Zealand Journal of Zoology abstracts
Birds in Australian and New Zealand museums - a major resource for
ornithology
B. J. Gill
Auckland Museum
Private Bag 92018
Auckland Mail Centre
Auckland 1142, New Zealand
bgill@aucklandmuseum.com
Abstract The 14 major bird collections in
Australia (10) and
New Zealand (4) together hold half a million specimens, including 275
000 from Australia and 115 000 from New Zealand. Six large collections
in Australia, and two in New Zealand, each hold at least 30 000 birds.
The largest single collection (Australian Museum, Sydney) has 78 000
birds. Overall, study-skins are the most common form of preparation
(47%), followed by eggs (20%). However, for New Zealand collections
alone, fossil bones are the biggest single category (56%) reflecting
that country’s remarkable Holocene fossil record of birds.
Taxonomically, the best-represented group in the Australasian
collections is the order Passeriformes, followed by Anseriformes,
Procellariiformes, Psittaciformes, Charadriiformes, Columbiformes,
Falconiformes, and ratites (Ratitae). Most birds in Australasian
collections (81%) are from Australia or New Zealand, followed by 27 000
specimens (6%) from the south-west Pacific (islands of Polynesia and
Melanesia, including New Guinea). The Australasian collections are
managed by a total staffing complement of about 25 FTE (full-time
equivalents), most of whom care for other taxonomic groups besides
birds. Nearly all specimen records are now captured electronically, but
seven different software systems are used (KE “EMu” and Vernon Systems
“Collection” most commonly). The 14 Australasian bird collections
together form a nationally and internationally important resource.
These collections document the biodiversity of the birds of the
Australasian biogeographic region, and allow researchers to study many
aspects of avian biology, including speciation, biogeography, moult and
plumages, systematics and conservation.
Keywords Australia; New Zealand; Australasia;
south-west
Pacific; museum specimens; natural history collections; study-skins;
bones; fossils; eggs
Z06020; Online publication date 31 October 2006 Received 6 June
2006; accepted 3 October 2006
New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 2006, Vol. 33: 299–315
0301–4223/06/3304–0299 © The Royal Society of New
Zealand
2006
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