Gliciphila melanops 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 : 147-148

Gliciphila melanops crassirostris Mathews

Gliciphila melanops crassirostris Mathews, 1912a: 399 (Tasmania) .

Now Gliciphila melanops melanops (Latham, 1801) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 430, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 316–317, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191; and Higgins et al., 2008: 659.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 691928 , sex?, collected in Tasmania, Australia, by R[onald] Gunn. From the Mathews Collection (no. 9872) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description; according to his catalog, he obtained it from BMNH and cataloged it on 4 December 1911. In addition to Mathews and Rothschild type labels, the type bears a BMNH label marked ‘‘Dupl.’’ Sharpe (1906: 247, 377) noted that Ronald Gunn, Esq., had presented 158 specimens of birds from Tasmania to BMNH in 1838, but that most had been ruined from being on display, and only a few remained. Mathews must have selected his unfaded specimen from those remaining, although there is no indication on the label that it received a BMNH number. On the reverse of this label is the annotation: ‘‘No. 13 Rye. 10/17/82.’’ R. Prys-Jones (personal commun.) tells me that this refers to the taxidermist who dismounted this specimen in 1882, and that it was very probably BMNH 1838 .1.15.80, one of two specimens of this species received from Gunn. The second specimen is still in the BMNH collection .

Schodde and Mason (1999: 316) named the population of this species from western Tasmania G. m. chelidonia, noting that the type of crassirostris and specimens from eastern Tasmania and the Furneaux Group are indistinguishable from mainland Australian specimens, contra Salomonsen (1967: 430). Because this type is the only specimen of G. melanops from Tasmania in AMNH and there is only one immature specimen from Flinders Island, comparisons are not possible. The holotype of crassirostris does appear to have an extraordinarily long bill because of damage to the base of the bill, with feathers missing.