Myzantha melanocephala crassirostris Mathews

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 158

Myzantha melanocephala crassirostris Mathews

Myzantha melanocephala crassirostris Mathews, 1912a: 417 (Cairns, Queensland).

Now considered to come from a zone of intergradation (see below). See Salomonsen, 1967: 440; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 266–268, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 616–617.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 694412 , adult male, collected on the Barron River , Queensland, Australia, on 7 June 1911, by the Dodds (no. 25). From the Mathews Collection (no. 9332) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews gave his catalog number of the holotype in the original description and the range of crassirostris as ‘‘ Queensland.’’ The holotype bears the original label and Mathews and Rothschild type labels. The number ‘‘804’’ that appears on the original label refers to the number of this species in Mathews (1908). Mathews gave the type locality of this form as ‘‘Cairns,’’ but it was undoubtedly collected on the Barron River near the Dodd’s home at Kuranda, 16.46S, 145.37E (Times Atlas), on the Atherton Tableland; the species does not occur on the coast at Cairns. Only this single Mathews Queensland specimen came to AMNH. Salomonsen (1967: 440) recognized crassirostris ; Schodde and Mason (1999: 266–268) considered that ‘‘variably intergradient populations … extend south from the Mareeba- Herberton tablelands to at least the headwaters of the Lynd … and probably to the upper Einasleigh-Burdekin drainages.’’ Schodde and Mason (1999: 268) then named the Cape York population Manorina melanocephala titaniota and the eastern Queensland – New South Wales population M. m. lepidota. Higgins et al. (2008: 616–617) recognized only the nominate race on mainland Australia and suggested further study regarding the two recently named subspecies.