Description
The hummingbird (Family Trochilidae) collection of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) is one of the oldest single collections of this family harboured in European museums.
Almost two thousand specimens, that encompass most of the taxonomic range of this family, were collected in the late 19th Century. They were bought from the same provider, mainly as mounted specimens, for a Portuguese private collection that was donated in the 20th Century to the museum that is now MHNC-UP.
The information about these specimens is now available for consultation on the GBIF platform.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 1,335 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Lopes R J, Faria P, Freitas B, Gomes D (2019): The Hummingbird Collection of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP). v1.2. Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP). Dataset/Occurrence. http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=mhncup_aves_hummingbirds&v=1.2
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 17f6f3d0-b5ef-434b-95a8-cc32d8e5236f. Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Portugal.
Keywords
Occurrence; Specimen; Hummingbirds; Museum; Biodiversity databases
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Curator ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2193-5107
- Originator
- Originator
- Originator
Geographic Coverage
This collection holds multiple specimens from almost the entire range of hummingbirds in the American Continent, including several islands (e.g., Trinidad and Tobago). This coverage is lower than reality since almost half of the collection is not referenced to country level and precise geographic location is only available for a very small subset. A further issue is the common practice in the 19th Century to provide the name of the capital as the location and it is now difficult to discern specimens that were truly recorded near a capital and those that were not. Although most species have a geographical distribution that range more than one country, for species endemic at the country level, it was possible to increase the precision to the country level.
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-44.088, -129.023], North East [47.754, -23.906] |
|---|
Taxonomic Coverage
Concerning the taxonomic representation, MHNC-UP’s Hummingbird Collection covers all the evolutionary range of this family, including most of the genus, making it valuable for any study pertaining taxonomy, systematics or phylogeny of the Hummingbird family. Also, for more than 15% of the species, the number of specimens is higher than 10.
| Kingdom | Animalia |
|---|---|
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Aves |
| Order | Apodiformes |
| Family | Trochilidae |
Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1850-01-01 / 1920-01-01 |
|---|
Project Data
The MHNC-UP bird collection holds a major percentage of the vertebrate specimens in the museum (more than 80% of all specimens), comprising the largest collection of its kind in Portugal (known records for more than 7,000 specimens). The Trochilidae family is the most representative group, since they are more than a seventh of all birds accounted for and hold a considerable number of species, representative of almost all genera of this family. Its value is quite high, given the rarity of the specimens, the ethical and logistics concerns of harvesting more birds. The collection holds several specimens from various species with high conservation status. Several species listed in threatened categories by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) are present in the collection (BirdLife International 2016), including the probably extinct Turquoise-throated Puffleg (Eriocnemis godini). It is only known by six specimens which were collected in the 19th century and all recent surveys failed to find individuals and IUCN believes it may be extinct (BirdLife International 2016). Also of high relevance are the two specimens of the Blue Bearded Helmetcrest (Oxypogon cyanolaemus), a species with a population size lower than 250 individuals, that inhabits high altitude habitats in North Colombia last recorded until recently around 70 years ago.
| Title | The Hummingbird Collection of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) |
|---|---|
| Funding | E-Infrastructure for Information and Research on Biodiversity (PORBIOTA) and Research Infrastructure of Scientific Collections (PRISC) |
| Study Area Description | Concerning the taxonomic representation, MHNC-UP’s Hummingbird Collection covers all the evolutionary range of this family, including most of the genus, making it valuable for any study pertaining taxonomy, systematics or phylogeny of the Hummingbird family. Also, for more than 15% of the species, the number of specimens is higher than 10. This collection holds multiple specimens from almost the entire range of hummingbirds in the American Continent, including several islands (e.g., Trinidad and Tobago). This coverage is lower than reality since almost half of the collection is not referenced to country level and precise geographic location is only available for a very small subset. A further issue is a common practice in the 19th Century to provide the name of the capital as the location and it is now difficult to discern specimens that were truly recorded near a capital and those that were not. Although most species have a geographical distribution that ranges more than one country, for species endemic at the country level, it was possible to increase the precision to the country level. The temporal range of the records lies between 1850 and 1920. |
| Design Description | This collection was mainly collected through a French Naturalist supplier (Deyrolle) very well regarded in terms of taxidermy and entomology, since its inception in 1831 (Fox 2012). There is no information regarding the original collectors. One such client of Deyrolle would be José Teixeira da Silva Braga Júnior, who purchased a vast collection of tropical hummingbirds over the years (which are ultimately the subject of this work), and created a museum in the “Palacete Braguinha”, that is now FBAUP (Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto). The collection of hummingbirds of the MHNC-UP was first catalogued after 2005 using a proprietary software (Index Rerum, FCo. São João da Madeira). In 2016-17 the catalogued information was transcribed and revised or updated. |
The personnel involved in the project:
Sampling Methods
This collection was mainly collected through a French Naturalist supplier (Deyrolle) very well regarded in terms of taxidermy and entomology, since its inception in 1831 (Fox 2012). There is no information regarding the original collectors. One such client of Deyrolle would be José Teixeira da Silva Braga Júnior, who purchased a vast collection of tropical hummingbirds over the years (which are ultimately the subject of this work), and created a museum in the “Palacete Braguinha”, that is now FBAUP (Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto). Unfortunately, many rich private collections would not outlive their owners by much, being disbanded, dissolved unto others or simply irreparably lost from lack of preservation or natural disaster. As for institutions, despite their roles of scientific and public education such as our local examples of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and its Museum, funding was often too scarce to allow the expanding of Natural History collections. However, in a rare stroke of luck, the outstanding collection of the “Museu Silva Braga” was not lost but instead, the legal heirs donated the collection to the Museum that would come nowadays to be known as the MHNC-UP.
| Study Extent | This collection holds multiple specimens from almost the entire range of hummingbirds in the American Continent, including several islands (e.g., Trinidad and Tobago). This coverage is lower than reality since almost half of the collection is not referenced to country level and precise geographic location is only available for a very small subset. A further issue is the common practice in the 19th Century to provide the name of the capital as the location and it is now difficult to discern specimens that were truly recorded near a capital and those that were not. Although most species have a geographical distribution that range more than one country, for species endemic at the country level, it was possible to increase the precision to the country level. The temporal range of the records lies between 1850 and 1920. |
|---|---|
| Quality Control | The priority was to correct taxonomic, geographic and temporal data for each specimen, using validation lists for taxa and locations. For the taxonomic information, we used the BirdLife Checklist, because it matches the species evaluated in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It includes information on the scientific and common names used by BirdLife, the Authority (for the original description of the taxon), BirdLife’s taxonomic treatment (recognised, not recognised or under review), the latest IUCN Red List category (e.g. Extinct, Vulnerable, Least Concern), the (selected) sources that recognize the taxon, the scientific and common names used by these sources, where relevant, a taxonomic note, and a record ID number unique to the taxonomic entity. For locations, following the Named Area Standards recommended by GBIF, it was chosen the ISO3166, a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, and their principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states). The digital database was curated following the priorities already defined above. All data was stored in a relational online database. Taxonomic information for each specimen was validated automatically using the Species validation list (described above). When the species name did not match any name in the list, a process of curation was initiated, that relied on several bibliographical sources (de Schauensee and Phelps 1978, Schuchmann 1999, Williamson 2002, Fogden, Taylor, et al. 2014) and internet sources of digital information (e.g. www.avibase.bsc-eoc.org; neotropical.birds.cornell.edu; wikiaves.com.br), to match the old and synonym species names already in the database with the contemporary species name. Geographical information was validated using the location list to the Country level and temporal information was validated to the Decade or Year precision. |
Method step description:
- The process of curation was first started with the establishment of a match between the digital data and the specimen. Then, using archival paper tags, each specimen’s main information (Museum ID, Species ID and other kind of data available) was tagged in the leg. Then, a digital photography was taken, to provide a long-term digital voucher of the specimen.
Collection Data
| Collection Name | The Hummingbird Collection of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) |
|---|---|
| Collection Identifier | MHNC-UP_AVES_Hummingbirds |
| Parent Collection Identifier | MHNC-UP_AVES |
| Specimen preservation methods | Mounted |
|---|
Bibliographic Citations
- Schuchmann K. 1999. Family Trochilidae. In: del Hoyo J, Elliot A, Sargatal J editors. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 5. Barn Owls to Hummingbirds. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions.
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | 17f6f3d0-b5ef-434b-95a8-cc32d8e5236f |
|---|---|
| http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=mhncup_aves_hummingbirds |