Curiosities Natural History Museum finds rare stuffed bird

A stuffed specimen of a lost rainforest bird has turned up at the Natural History Museum in Bern. The Academy of Natural Sciences announced on Tuesday that there are hardly any specimens of this bird species. Little is therefore known about it.

"A golden-crowned tyrant in our collection - we didn't expect that", Manuel Schweizer, curator of ornithology at the museum, was quoted as saying in the press release. Museum staff discovered the stuffed bird during a review of digitally archived objects.

The golden-crowned tyrant was thought to have been lost between 1890 and 1996. In 1996, two Brazilian ornithologists observed a specimen. Since then, there have been no more confirmed sightings. For a long time, the bird was therefore only known through museum specimens.

Poorly documented collection

However, according to Schweizer, these only provide limited information. "Most specimens are poorly documented, so it is not possible to draw any conclusions about where the species might occur," said Schweizer. "This also applies to our specimen. We were the only ones able to find out with the help of old catalogs that it had been added to our collection in the late 1870s."

The example shows how important it is that there are standards for the documentation and processing of collection items and that the information is made available to researchers all over the world in public databases.

Spurred on by the unexpected discovery, Schweizer then worked with researchers from Brazil and England to compile an inventory of all museum specimens of the bird species worldwide. The scientists were able to track down over 100 specimens. It was previously estimated that there were around 50 museum specimens.

SDA