Sylvia atricapilla gularis Alexander, 1898

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 : 70

Sylvia atricapilla gularis Alexander

Sylvia atricapilla gularis Alexander, 1898: 81 (Santiago Island, Cape Verde Islands).

Now Sylvia atricapilla gularis Alexander, 1898 . See del Hoyo et al., 2006: 693.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 595658, male, and AMNH 595659, female, collected on Santiago Island, Cape Verde Islands, in February 1897, by Boyd Alexander. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Alexander did not designate a type in the original description, saying that he had collected five specimens and describing male and female. The description was based entirely on Santiago Island specimens, and only the two listed above from that island came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection. They were not listed as types by Hartert and had not previously been included in the AMNH type collection.

Hazevoet (1995: 140) did not support the recognition of a separate subspecies in the Cape Verde Islands, having noted that the birds described by Alexander as having the ‘‘chin and upper throat umber-brown’’ were stained by pollen. Alexander, however, also noted a difference in song.

See Cibois (2003) and papers cited therein for evidence that Sylvia is a babbler and for a discussion of the taxonomic implications.