The wild goat of Montecristo Island: did it ever exist?
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Spartaco Gippoliti
Abstract
It has recently been claimed by Masseti that a wild goat survived on Montecristo Island until the first half of the 20th century and that subsequent selection procedures produced a goat that did not resemble any true wild goat. In the present note, it is emphasized that the Montecristo goat was in fact never taxonomically described. The fact that a Montecristo “wild” goat has been included in the national and European legislation as a protected “species” could only been explained with the decline of mammal taxonomy that has been observed in Western Europe during the second half of 20th century.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Paola Di Luzio (Library, Museo Civico di Zoologia, Roma) for allowing access to precious references and Thomas Hutton for revising the English.
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©2016 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Review
- The wild goat, Capra aegagrus Erxleben, 1777, of the island of Montecristo (Northern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy): does it still exist?
- Original Studies
- Trophic relationships of sympatric small carnivores in fragmented landscapes of southern Brazil: niche overlap and potential for competition
- Dietary adaptation of white-headed langurs in a fragmented limestone habitat
- Winter foraging of chinkara (Gazella bennettii shikarii) in Central Iran
- Null model analysis on bat species co-occurrence and nestedness patterns in a region of the Atlantic Rainforest, Brazil
- Richness and distribution of porcupines (Erethizontidae: Coendou) from Colombia
- The level of rodent problems in poultry farms of Rawalpindi-Islamabad, Pakistan
- Survival and recruitment of the multimammate mouse, Mastomys natalensis (Smith 1834), in a rice agro-ecosystem
- New records of Cryptonanus guahybae (Tate, 1931) in southern Brazil inferred from molecular and morphological data
- Short Notes
- The wild goat of Montecristo Island: did it ever exist?
- First record of a bat from the Lakshadweep archipelago, southwestern India
- Status of pinnipeds in Southeast Asia
- Breeding habits of the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) in Potohar Plateau, Pakistan
- Litter size and basic diet of brown bears (Ursus arctos, Carnivora) in northeastern Turkey
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Review
- The wild goat, Capra aegagrus Erxleben, 1777, of the island of Montecristo (Northern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy): does it still exist?
- Original Studies
- Trophic relationships of sympatric small carnivores in fragmented landscapes of southern Brazil: niche overlap and potential for competition
- Dietary adaptation of white-headed langurs in a fragmented limestone habitat
- Winter foraging of chinkara (Gazella bennettii shikarii) in Central Iran
- Null model analysis on bat species co-occurrence and nestedness patterns in a region of the Atlantic Rainforest, Brazil
- Richness and distribution of porcupines (Erethizontidae: Coendou) from Colombia
- The level of rodent problems in poultry farms of Rawalpindi-Islamabad, Pakistan
- Survival and recruitment of the multimammate mouse, Mastomys natalensis (Smith 1834), in a rice agro-ecosystem
- New records of Cryptonanus guahybae (Tate, 1931) in southern Brazil inferred from molecular and morphological data
- Short Notes
- The wild goat of Montecristo Island: did it ever exist?
- First record of a bat from the Lakshadweep archipelago, southwestern India
- Status of pinnipeds in Southeast Asia
- Breeding habits of the Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) in Potohar Plateau, Pakistan
- Litter size and basic diet of brown bears (Ursus arctos, Carnivora) in northeastern Turkey
