Towards a unified publicly accessible database of avian type specimens

Type specimens represent the crucial physical reference for any scientific bird name, but type material is scattered widely across the globe, and there is still no one comprehensive source documenting the presence, status and condition of all avian type specimens, as well as associated information on nomenclature and the validity of individual names. Indeed, many collections, including very large and globally important repositories, lack a published type catalogue. Where such works are available, they may exist solely in printed form, are only partial in extent or are now outdated and incomplete. Furthermore, many workers, even taxonomists, may be unaware of them because such catalogues often appear in more obscure or less ‘visible’ periodicals or as stand‐alone museum publications. As a result, we advocate creating a comprehensive online database/data portal for bird type specimen information, focused initially on material held in European institutions, to serve as a standard and dynamic reference for collection‐based systematic, taxonomic and nomenclatural research. Among the various benefits, principally we highlight that the findability of, and access to, type specimens and their associated data will be greatly improved, perhaps especially among researchers in the Global South, as will co‐operation and data‐sharing between different institutions. Furthermore, such a project will also promote greater integration between the museum community and umbrella‐style international database projects. It can also feed into even wider and more general collaborations surrounding biodiversity research and documentation, such as the disambiguation of people's names in biological collections.