Treasure of the month

February 2018

A "Little Bird of Paradise

Many species of birds of paradise live in inaccessible mountain ranges of New Guinea and on adjacent coasts. The ranges of individual species are often small and occasionally limited to a single mountain range.

Our Treasure of the Month for February is a "Lesser Bird of Paradise" (Paradisaea minor). This magnificent animal is part of the ornithological collection at LIB and is only on display as part of the special exhibition "Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest" on view at the Museum of Nature - Zoology through the end of March. The special exhibition focuses on the endangered rainforest habitat and refers to Alfred Russel Wallace's research expeditions in the mid-19th century, who, among other things, studied birds of paradise in detail.

LIB's ornithological collection includes some 20 bird of paradise genera. A total of 30,000 bellows and specimens are archived here, which can be assigned to about 3500 bird species. Also part of the collection are about 4,000 bird skeletons, 2,000 alcohol preparations, about 15,000 eggs and 20,000 feather specimens.

Even though many objects were destroyed in the fire of the large Natural History Museum in Hamburg during World War II, many externally stored objects were saved. Today they still form the heart of the collection and also include parts of the Museum Godeffroy's ornithological collection from the South Pacific (Fiji, Samoa). The ornithological collection was continuously expanded after the war.

More about the Ornithological Collection:
www.cenak.uni-hamburg.de/sammlungen/zoologie/ornithologie.html