Aphelocephala leucopsis pallida 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 : 182

Aphelocephala leucopsis pallida Mathews

Aphelocephala leucopsis pallida Mathews, 1911b: 62 (Leigh’s Creek, in South Australia).

Now Aphelocephala leucopsis leucopsis (Gould, 1841) . See Mayr, 1986b: 458, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 219–220.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 683430 , unsexed, collected at Leigh Creek , 30.31S, 138.25E

(Times Atlas), South Australia, Australia, on 21 September 1910, specimen prepared by Edwin Ashby and from his collection. From the Mathews Collection (no. 6195) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description. The number ‘‘239’’ that appears on Ashby’s label is crossed out and replaced by ‘‘689’’, which number refers to this species in Mathews (1908a). ‘‘Wong 61’’ is written on the reverse of this label in a hand unknown. In addition to Ashby’s label, the holotype bears Mathews and Rothschild type labels and was indicated as the type in Mathews’ catalog. Despite the fact that the title of Mathews’ description implied that he had ‘‘examples’’, only one specimen from Leigh Creek came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection, and it is the only specimen of this species that Mathews cataloged from Leigh Creek. There is evidence in SAMA that Ashby sent Mathews large portions of his collection, which were later returned to him after Mathews had selected specimens for himself (P. Horton and B. Blaylock, personal commun.). A second Leigh Creek specimen was obtained by AMNH directly from Ashby, and it is entirely possible that the specimen, AMNH 155617, passed through Mathews’ hands and is a paratype.