Prionochilus johannae Sharpe, 1888

Pachycephalidae, Aegithalidae, Remizidae, Paridae, Sittidae, Neosittidae, Certhiidae, Rhabdornithidae, Climacteridae, Dicaeidae, Pardalotidae, Nectariniidae, And & Lecroy, Mary, 2010, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 8. Passeriformes:, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2010 (333), pp. 1-178 : 107-108

Prionochilus johannae Sharpe

Prionochilus johannae Sharpe, 1888a (April) : 201 (Palawan).

Now Prionochilus plateni plateni Blasius, 1888 (February) . See Blasius, 1888b: 372–375, Salomonsen, 1960a: 25–26, 28, Dickinson et al., 1991: 388, and Cheke and Mann, 2008b: 369– 370.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 698537 , adult male, collected at Tagusao (5 Taguso), 08.49N, 117.53E ( Dickinson et al., 1991: 426), Palawan Island , Philippines, on 25 June 1887, by John Whitehead (no. 1427). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Sharpe did not designate a type, describing and illustrating (pl. 4, fig. 1) only a male specimen. Whitehead (1890: 54) also did not say how many specimens he obtained, but added a description of the female. Assuming that Sharpe had the entire 1887 Palawan collection before him when he reported on it, there are five syntypes of P. johannae in AMNH and a syntype in BMNH ( Warren and Harrison, 1971: 275). AMNH 698537, marked ‘‘Type RBS[harpe]’’ in his hand, is undoubtedly the one he intended as the type. It is this specimen that Hartert (1920a: 431) listed as the type, giving Whitehead’s unique field number 1427, thereby designating it the lectotype; it bears in addition to Whitehead’s original tiny field label, the printed Whitehead label, and a Rothschild type label. The four paralectotypes in AMNH, all from Tagusao and collected by Whitehead in 1887, are: AMNH 698536 (Whitehead no. 1645), adult male, 5 August; AMNH 698538 (1643), adult male, 4 August; AMNH 698539 (1646), adult male, 5 August; AMNH 698540 (1644), female, 4 August.

Salomonsen (1960a: 28) said: As in the case of Prionochilus plateni Blasius , there is a specimen in both museums [AMNH and BMNH] marked ‘‘ type.’’ It is obvious that Sharpe retained the type specimen in the British Museum, and consequently I select the specimen in the British Museum as the type. Hartert, in his list of types in the Tring Museum … mentioned the type or alledged type specimens of Prionochilus plateni and P. johannae which are now in the American Museum of Natural History.

Salomonsen was mistaken that Sharpe preserved in the BMNH all of his types of names based on Whitehead’s specimens. The sponsors of Whitehead’s expeditions purchased some specimens that were donated to BMNH, sometimes but not always including types; Whitehead retained and sold others, often to Rothschild. Because Sharpe did not designate types in the original descriptions, his initials and ‘‘Type’’ in his hand are the only indication of those specimens that he intended as types of his new taxa. These are the specimens on which Hartert automatically conferred lectotype status when listing them in the Rothschild type lists. Therefore, Salomonsen’s designation of the British Museum syntype as the lectotype is incorrect, and Hartert’s designation 40 years earlier must stand ( ICZN, 1999: 82, Art. 74.1.1) .

AMNH 698537 had been marked ‘‘ Not a type. J.F[arrand] (see Salomonsen),’’ and it had been put in the general collection with the Rothschild type label still attached. The specimen has now been returned to the AMNH type collection with an added AMNH type label.

When Sharpe (1888a: 193) reported on the Palawan collection, he said that Whitehead had been ‘‘obliged to collect’’ in the vicinity of Puerto Princesa. However, Whitehead (1890: 38) noted that the ship had left him at Tagusao ‘‘on the S.E. coast (many miles south of Puerto Princesa),’’ and all of his specimens are labeled ‘‘Taguso.’’