The bird collections in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin resulting from Ernst Schäfer's three expeditions to Tibet and Sikkim

Abstract

Ernst Schäfer (1910-1992), a German hunter and zoologist, became famous due to his zoological and ecological studies in Tibet (Xizang). The basis of these studies was his participation in three expeditions to Sikkim, Tibet and adjoining provinces in 1931/32, 1934-1936 and 1938/39. A large amount of birds obtained during these expeditions is housed in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. Most of them were neither inventoried nor integrated in the museum's collection. As there is still a big interest in these birds because of their origin of the transition zone from the Palearctic to the Indo-Malayan, we aimed to make these birds available for the scientific community. We compiled an updated list of all the 3,520 birds collected by Schäfer in Tibet and Sikkim. Summarizing, we found 5 specimens of the expedition 1931/32, 230 of the expedition 1934-36 and 3,285 specimens of the expedition 1938/39. From Schäfer's last expedition we inventoried 650 specimens of 58 species collected in Tibet from January to the end of June 1939, and 2700 specimens of 278 species collected in Sikkim in 1938 and the first half of 1939. Important collecting localities are Gangtok (939 specimens), Lachen (369 specimens), Gogong (300 specimens), Thanggu (259 specimens), Lhasa (133 specimens), Chuntang (103 specimens) and Xigaze (102 specimens). © 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.