Ptilotis marchei Oustalet, 1889

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 : 109

Ptilotis marchei Oustalet

Ptilotis marchei Oustalet, 1889: 260 (l’île Saypan).

Now Cleptornis marchei ( Oustalet, 1889) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 393, Slikas et al., 2000, and van Balen, 2008: 480.

SYNTYPE: AMNH 691132, adult male, collected on Saipan Island, 15.12N, 145.43E (Times Atlas), Northern Mariana Islands, in May 1887, by Alfred Marche (no. 5047). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: No type was designated in the original description, nor was a type mentioned by Oustalet (1895: 202–205) in his later paper. This AMNH syntype bears Marche’s original label, an MNHN label with number C.G. 1888–132, and a Roth- schild Collection label. The reverse of the MNHN label is annotated ‘‘Typical specimen from Prof. Oustalet, Paratype.’’ However, because no specimen in MNHN is marked as the type, nor is there any indication in the MNHN catalog regarding type status of any specimen (C. Voisin, personal commun.), all of the specimens should be regarded as syntypes. There are 25 specimens listed by Oustalet (1895: 202) in his later paper, with Marche’s numbers given. The species is illustrated with its nest and eggs in Oustalet (1895: pl. 7).

This species was included in the Meliphagidae by Salomonsen (1967: 393) and, for that reason, is included in that family in the AMNH type list. However recent DNA studies by Slikas et al. (2000), confirming a suggestion by Pratt (in Pratt et al., 1987: 287), indicate that it is more closely related to the Zosteropidae and should be included in that family ( van Balen, 2008: 480). The above specimen had not previously been included with the AMNH types, and an AMNH type label has been added.