Mino dumontii sanfordi Hartert

Mino dumontii sanfordi Hartert, 1929b: 18 (Guadalcanar) .

Now Mino kreffti sanfordi Hartert, 1929 . See Mayr, 1945: 265; Amadon, 1956: 34–36; 1962a: 116; Feare and Craig, 1999: 133; Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 400; Dickinson, 2003: 653; and Craig and Feare, 2009: 713.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 666937, adult male, collected on Guadalcanal (= Guadalcanar), 09.30S, 160.00E (Times Atlas), Solomon Islands, on 28 April 1901, by Albert S. Meek (no. 3028). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartert (1927) was sent on loan some of the specimens collected in the Solomon Islands by the Whitney South Sea Expedition, and using Rothschild specimens for comparisons, published the paper in which this form was described. In the original description, Hartert noted that he had seen two Whitney Expedition Guadalcanal specimens from AMNH and that the Rothschild Collection held five other specimens from Guadalcanal. He then designated a Rothschild specimen collected by A.S. Meek (no. 3028) as the holotype of sanfordi. Fortunately, Hartert labeled as sanfordi the two AMNH specimens he saw as well as the other five (although, contra Hartert, two are labeled as males and three as females). All seven of Hartert’s listed specimens are now in AMNH and the following six specimens are paratypes: Guadalcanal: AMNH 218463 (Whitney no. 26145), male, 26 April 1927, collected by Joe Hicks, AMNH 218467 (Whitney no. 25934), female, 18 April 1927, collected by Joe Hicks, AMNH 666938, 666939 (Meek nos. 2890, 3016), females, 14, 27 April 1901, collected by Meek; Aola, Guadalcanal, AMNH 666940, male, 16 April 1887, AMNH 666941, female, 20 June 1887, both collected by C.M. Woodford. Joe Hicks was a crew member on the Whitney Expedition ship France, who frequently prepared specimens. On 18 April 1927, the France, was at Malapa Island, Marau Sound, and on 26 April, it had moved to Kaukau Bay. Rothschild and Hartert (1901: 375) reported on Meek’s collection from Guadalcanal and listed the three specimens as Mino kreffti .

Mino dumontii and M. kreffti have been variously treated, with kreffti recognized either as a full species or as a subspecies of M. dumontii; the subspecies sanfordi has been treated as a synonym of kreffti or recognized as a valid form. Craig and Feare (2009: 713) treated M. kreffti as monotypic, but suggest- ed that ‘‘further study [is] needed at both specific and subspecific levels.’’ It seems best that the subspecies sanfordi be recognized until such studies are made.