Neostrepera versicolor riordani Mathews

Neostrepera versicolor riordani Mathews, 1913b: 78 (Geelong, Victoria).

Now Strepera graculina ashbyi Mathews, 1913 . See Amadon, 1951: 25–27; 1962b: 170; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 551–554; Dickinson, 2003: 463; and Russell and Rowley, 2009: 340–341.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 673621, adult male, collected at Aireys Inlet, 38.28S, 144.06E (USBGN, 1957), near Geelong, Victoria, Australia, on 29 April 1913, for H.A. Parnell. From the Mathews Collection (no. 17419) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews gave the locality as Geelong and the date of collection. No other locality or specimen was mentioned, and his catalog number was not given.

Schodde and Mason (1999: 554) noted that three names were available for Victorian populations: ashbyi Mathews, 1913, riordani Mathews, 1913, and grampianensis Ashby, 1927. The two older names were introduced by Mathews simultaneously. By synonymizing riordani with ashbyi, Mathews (1930: 657) himself became the first reviser and chose ashbyi over riordani. Schodde and Mason (1999: 554) commented that the types of riordani and grampianensis both show signs of intergradation with other forms of S. graculina; ashbyi, on the other hand, resembles western Victorian birds and shows little sign of mixing, and therefore it is an acceptable name for the central-west Victorian population.