Myzomela obscura meeki Rothschild and Hartert

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 : 60

publication ID	0003-0090
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scientific name	Myzomela obscura meeki Rothschild and Hartert
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Myzomela obscura meeki Rothschild and Hartert, 1907: 479 (Upper Aroa River).

Now Myzomela obscura fumata ( Bonaparte, 1850) View in CoL . See Salomonsen, 1967: 352, Coates, 1990: 240– 241, and Higgins et al., 2008: 638–639.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 692590 About AMNH , female, collected on the Aroa River , Central Province, Papua New Guinea, on 6 February 1905, by Albert S. Meek (no. B.208). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Rothschild and Hartert gave Meek’s unique field number of the holotype in the original description and said that they had three males and two females, including the type. The paratypes, all labeled Aroa River, are: males, AMNH 692587 About AMNH (Meek no. B.71), 30 November 1904, AMNH 692588 About AMNH (B.59), 27 November 1904, and AMNH 692589 About AMNH (B.64), 28 November ; female, AMNH 692591 About AMNH (B.122), 31 December 1904

On this, Meek’s second trip to the Aroa River, he himself camped at high altitudes ( Rothschild and Jordan, 1905: 448–454). Most of the specimens from high altitudes have field numbers beginning with ‘‘A.’’ The ones beginning with ‘‘B,’’ and usually said by Rothschild and Hartert (1907) to be from the Upper Aroa River, are actually only labeled ‘‘Aroa River’’ in a hand that is not Meek’s. Rothschild and Jordan (1905: 449) quote a letter from Meek: ‘‘I am also taking a new assistant, though I have as yet my doubts whether he will be of much good to me.’’ And later (p. 450) ‘‘A white man, a prospector, accompanied me to the Aroa River, where I had to leave him. He seemed too scared of the natives to bring him along to places where there is a chance of the natives being bad.’’ The ‘‘B’’ specimens always seem to be lowland or hill forms and collected on dates that Meek was himself in the mountains. So it seems possible that the ‘‘new assistant’’ remained in the lowlands and collected birds. Meek, on this trip, was collecting mainly lepidoptera.

References

Bonaparte, C. L. 1850. Conspectus generum avium, vol. 1. Lugduni Batavorum: E. J. Brill, 543 pp.

Coates, B. J. 1990. The birds of Papua New Guinea. Vol. 2. Passerines. Alderley, Queensland: Dove Publications, 576 pp.

Higgins, P. J., L. Christidis, and H. A. Ford. 2008. Meliphagidae (honeyeaters). In J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, and D. Christie (editors), Handbook of birds of the world, vol. 13, Penduline-tits to shrikes: 498 - 691. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions, 879 pp., 60 pls., 536 photographs.

Rothschild, W., and K. Jordan. 1905. On some new lepidoptera discovered by A. S. Meek in British New Guinea. Novitates Zoologicae 12: 448 - 478.

Rothschild, W., and E. Hartert. 1907. List of collections of birds made by A. S. Meek in the mountains of the upper Aroa River and on the Angabunga River, British New Guinea. Novitates Zoologicae 14: 447 - 483.

Salomonsen, F. 1967. Family Meliphagidae. In R. A. Paynter, Jr (editor), Check-list of birds of the world, vol. 12: 338 - 450. Cambridge, MA: Museum of Comparative Zoology, ix + 495 pp.