Chlamydera maculata clelandi Mathews

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 : 86-87

Chlamydera maculata clelandi Mathews

Chlamydera maculata clelandi Mathews, 1912a: 439 (South Australia).

Now Chlamydera maculata (Gould, 1837) . See Mathews, 1926: 322–333; Hartert, 1929a: 56–57; Mayr and Jennings, 1952: 8–10; Mayr, 1962c: 179; Gilliard, 1969: 361–363; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 634–635; and Frith and Frith, 2004: 403–405; 2009a: 402–403.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 679122 , male, collected in South Australia?, undated. From

the Mathews Collection (no. 3656) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews gave his catalog number of the holotype in the original description and gave the range as ‘‘ South Australia.’’ He apparently had a single specimen as he described the bill as smaller and lighter, unique in this specimen because the rhamphotheca on the upper bill is missing ( Hartert, 1929a: 56). In addition to Mathews and Rothschild type labels, the holotype also bears a Mathews Collection label and a Mathews ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it served as the model for Mathews (1926, pl. 584, lower fig., opp. p. 322; text p. 323) where it is confirmed as the type of clelandiae. Hartert (1929a: 57) noted that the type was dirty and a poor choice for illustration.

The holotype has no original label. ‘‘Dr. Clelland’’ was noted as the collector on the Mathews label. This was undoubtedly J. Burton Cleland who published widely on the stomach contents of Australian birds (see Whittell, 1954: 147–152) and from whom Mathews often received specimens, although this holotype was not attributed to Cleland in Mathews’ catalog. I was also unable to find this specimen mentioned in Cleland’s published papers. According to the map in Schodde and Mason (1999: 634), C. maculata barely intrudes into eastern South Australia on the Murray River.

Some recent authors include Chlamydera in Ptilonorhynchus based on studies of cytochrome b in bowerbirds by Kusmierski et al. (1993) and Kusmierski et al. (1997). Pending the outcome of further molecular studies on bowerbirds, the more conventional generic limits are followed here.