Zosterops Basilanica Steere

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 : 10

[ Zosterops Basilanica Steere ]

Mees (1957: 148) designated AMNH 700019 as lectotype of Z. Basilanica Steere, 1890. Subsequent research by Dickinson et al. (1989) has shown that Steere Expedition material retained by other expedition members and unavailable to Steere (1890) when he described new taxa should not be considered syntypes of Steere’s names. Considerable Philippine material collected on the Steere expedition came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection. I ( LeCroy, 2003: 93) found that it was not possible to determine from whom Rothschild purchased his Steere material, but that it most likely was not from Steere himself, as none of the Steere material is accorded type status in Hartert’s lists of types in the Rothschild Collection. Rothschild probably purchased it—perhaps from Moseley—in order to have topotypical material for reference. Therefore, because there is good evidence that AMNH 700019 was not part of Steere’s type series, I consider that Mees’ designation of a lectotype from Rothschild material was incorrect and that it has no type standing (ICZN, 1999: 76, Art. 72.4.1). However, it is retained in the type collection, with an additional label explaining its status. There are two syntypes from the original series in BMNH ( Warren and Harrison, 1971: 58).