Sphecotheres maxillaris boweri Mathews

Sphecotheres maxillaris boweri Mathews, 1916a: 63 (Cairns, North Queensland).

Now from a zone of intergradation between S. v. vieilloti and S. v. flaviventris . See Mathews, 1930: 861; Greenway, 1962: 136; Ford, 1975; 1982; 1987; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 595–597; and Walther and Jones, 2008: 715–716.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 671353, adult male, collected at Cairns, 16.51S, 145.43E (Times Atlas), Queensland, Australia, on 20 June 1884, by T.H. Bowyer-Bower. From the Mathews Collection (no. 16826) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews said only that the type was from Cairns, without any information on how the type might be identified. The above specimen had not previously been included with type specimens. It does not bear either a Mathews or a Rothschild type label, but Mathews has written ‘‘Type’’ and his catalog number, ‘‘16826,’’ on his collection label. At that number he listed the single specimen of Sphecotheres maxillaris that he cataloged in 1912—a specimen collected much earlier by Bowyer-Bower and given to Mathews by the collector’s mother. Later, Mathews (1915b: 60–61) reported on the Bowyer-Bower specimens that he received and only listed a single specimen of Sphecotheres, which he identified then as Sphecotheres maxilliaris vieilloti . He named boweri in 1916, and in 1921 and 1930, he (Mathews, 1921: 164; 1930: 861) still recognized it, along with stalkeri in the latter publication. AMNH 671353 is the only specimen identified as boweri in the AMNH catalog.