Sitta coerulescens Brehm

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 : 81

Sitta coerulescens Brehm

Sitta coerulescens Brehm, 1855: 74 ( Deutschland) .

Now Sitta europaea caesia Wolf, 1810 . See Hartert, 1905d: 331, Kleinschmidt, 1928: 2, and Harrap, 2008b: 127–128.

? SYNTYPE: AMNH 456013, female, collected at Renthendorf, 50.48N, 11.58E (USBGN, 1959), Germany, on 24 October 1844. From the Brehm Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartert (1918a) did not list a Brehm type of coerulescens in the Rothschild

Collection. AMNH 456013 bears a Rothschild type label, filled in by hand unknown, that is marked ‘‘wohl’’ type of ‘‘ Sitta caerulescens Brehm’’ and with an initial that I interpret as that of O. Kleinschmidt. The name was introduced by Brehm (1855: 74) as Sitta coerulescens , and Kleinschmidt (1928: 2) discussed it with that spelling. He noted that Brehm’s name referred to an especially longbilled form. This specimen does have a very long bill (my measurement of the bill from base is 20.5 mm). Many name changes were made by Brehm on his label of AMNH456013, and they are very difficult to interpret. However, it appears that in one case he had written caesia , had then changed that to caeru and added beneath lescens, both parts of which are marked through. The remaining name that is not marked out is septentrionalis , indicating Brehm’s final decision on the name to be applied to this specimen. It is obvious that Kleinschmidt was doubtful as to the type status of this specimen.