Dicrurus cathoeca Swinhoe

Lecroy, Mary, 2014, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2014 (393), pp. 1-165 : 52

Dicrurus cathoeca Swinhoe

Dicrurus cathoeca Swinhoe, 1871: 377 ( China, Hainan, Formosa).

Now Dicrurus macrocercus cathoecus Swinhoe, 1871 . See Swinhoe, 1863b: 266–268; Stuart Baker, 1918: 298–299; Hartert, 1921 –1922: 2017; Vaurie, 1949b: 239; 1962: 142; Dickinson, 2003: 491; and Rocamora and Yeatman-Berthelot, 2009: 222–223.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 671961, [adult], AMNH 671962, [immature], both collected in southwestern Taiwan (= Formosa), in 1861, by R. Swinhoe. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: When cathoeca was described by Swinhoe, no type was designated, but the form was said to occur in China, Hainan, and Formosa. Later, Stuart Baker (1918: 299) described the form harterti from Tai-peh, Formosa (see below), noting the differences between the Formosan birds and cathoeca from China, including Hainan Island. Hartert (1921: 2017) restricted the type locality of cathoeca to south China. These two syntypes of cathoeca are the only two Swinhoe specimens of that form which came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection. There are 23 syntypes of cathoeca in RMNH ( Dekker and Quaisser, 2006: 56), only two of which are from south China, but no lectotype was designated.

Swinhoe (1863a: 348) noted that from July to November 1861 he was in the southwest of Taiwan, in or near the city of Taiwanfoo (now T’ai-nan, 23.01N, 120.14E (Times Atlas)).