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

Primates. DOI 10.1007/s10329-008-0116-z

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.

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