The type locality of Pan troglodytes vellerosus (Gray, 1862), and implications for the nomenclature of West African chimpanzees

Abstract

We show that, in 1862, Richard Burton collected the type specimen of Pan troglodytes vellerosus not on Mount Cameroon, as has been generally assumed, but in Gabon. Therefore, P. t. vellerosus is not the correct name for the chimpanzee population of western Cameroon and southern Nigeria, if that population is taxonomically distinct. As First Reviser, we choose the name Pan troglodytes ellioti for this population of chimpanzees, based on Anthropopithecus ellioti named by Matschie [Matschie P (1914) Neue Affen aus Mittelafrika. Sitzungsber Ges Naturforsch Freunde Berlin 1914:323 - 342] from a specimen in the Humboldt Museum, Berlin, collected in Bascho (=Basho), Cameroon, and given to the museum in 1905.