Poodytes gramineus normani Mathews

LeCroy, M., 2008, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 7. Passeriformes: Sylviidae, Muscicapidae, Platysteiridae, Maluridae, Acanthizidae, Monarchidae, Rhipiduridae, And Petroicidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 313 (1), pp. 1-287 : 21

Poodytes gramineus normani Mathews

Poodytes gramineus normani Mathews, 1914b: 97 (Normanton, North Queensland).

Now Cincloramphus mathewsi Iredale, 1911 . See Watson et al., 1986a: 45, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 706–707, and del Hoyo et al., 2006: 580.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 587814 , adult female, collected at Normanton , 17.40S, 141.05E (Times Atlas), Queensland, Australia, on 2 April 1914, by Robin Kemp (no. 4263). From the Mathews Collection (no. 18477) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews originally placed this form in Poodytes (5 Megalurus ) gramineus , a small species of Megalurus ; and it was said to differ from P. gramineus goulburni ‘‘in being paler above; the red rump very noticeable; a distinct spotted band across the throat’’. Later, Mathews (1915a: 133) realized his error and listed it as Ptenoedus (5 Cincloramphus ) mathewsi normani, saying that it ‘‘Differs from P. m. horsfieldi in the manner stated’’. In the original description, Mathews said only that the type was from Normanton, north Queensland. In his catalog, only this single specimen is entered; few specimens were cataloged after 1913, usually types.

Because Mathews originally placed this form in ‘‘ Poodytes ’’ gramineus , it is reasonable to assume that he was considering only the smaller females of Cincloramphus mathewsi , a species that shows extreme sexual size dimorphism. Of the eight female specimens collected at Normanton in 1914 that had been in the Mathews Collection, three (AMNH 572944, 572949, and 572953) were originally identified as Anthus australis , and so were not part of Mathews’ type series. Of the other five, only AMNH 587814 agrees with the original description, having ‘‘the red rump very noticeable [and] a distinct spotted band across the throat’’. While it does not bear a Mathews type label, its Mathews Collection label is marked ‘‘type’’ in Mathews’ hand, and it is the only specimen in the group that he entered in his catalog. It bears a Rothschild type label, and I consider it the holotype. The remaining four female specimens, AMNH 587815, 587816, 587817, and 587818, are paratypes. AMNH 587817 is perhaps a juvenile male, as it is larger than the others and has the band across the lower throat streaked rather than spotted ( Schodde and Mason, 1999: 707).