A neotype of the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa Griffith 1821)

Christiansen, P; Kitchener, Andrew C

A neotype of the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa Griffith 1821)

Resource type

Journal article

Creator (person)

Christiansen, P

Kitchener, Andrew C

Date published

May 5, 2011

Abstract

Recent research has recognised that the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is, in fact, two separate species, which differ markedly with respect to craniodental and pelage morphology and genomic characters. There is confusion about the origin and inaccuracies in the description of the nominal specimen, and the undisputed lack of a type specimen prompts designation of a neotype of Neofelis nebulosa. In this paper a neotype specimen consisting of a skin, a skull, and a mandible (BM1955.1644) is designated, which is housed at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London. The type locality of Neofelis nebulosa is fixed as Chumphon, Peninsular Thailand, under Article 76 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, rather than the original and dubious locality of Canton, China by Edward Griffith. Descriptive data of the neotype specimen are accompanied by comparisons with other specimens of both species of Neofelis, N. nebulosa and N. diardi.