Gymnorhina tibicen finki Mathews

Gymnorhina tibicen finki Mathews, 1914: 100 (Horseshoe Bend, Fink River, N.T.) .

Now considered an intergrade or undifferentiated. See Amadon, 1951: 20; 1962b: 169; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 545–550; Dickinson, 2003: 643; Toon et al., 2007: 2525–2541; and Russell and Rowley, 2009: 339–340.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 673060, adult male, collected at Horseshoe Bend, 25.13S, 134.14E

(Times Atlas), Finke (= Fink) River, Northern Territory, Australia, on 26 September 1913, by S.A. White (no. 1[3?]10). From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: By 1914, Mathews no longer cataloged his birds and his descriptions had become increasingly meager. The type was said to be from Horseshoe Bend, Finke River, and the range included ‘‘ Central Australia.’’ The adult male is the only specimen in AMNH from Horseshoe Bend, and it is marked ‘‘type of G.t. finki, A.A. R. v. ii’’ by Mathews and bears a Rothschild type label. Although it is nowhere mentioned by Mathews, this specimen and the paratypes listed below were collected by S.A. White (1914: 433, 438; map opp. p. 407) on his long journey through Central Australia in 1913. On page 433, White had originally identified his specimens as G. t. intermissa?, but in an addendum (p. 438) noted that Mathews had described his birds as G. t. ‘‘ finkei.’’ The paratypes in AMNH are: Alice Springs, AMNH 673054–673058, five males, 4–6 September 1913; Hermannsburg, Finke Riv- er, AMNH 673059, immature female, 26 September 1913, all collected by S.A. White.

For a discussion of the complicated geographical variation in this species, see Schodde and Mason (1999: 545–550) and Toon et al. (2007: 2541).