Rhipidura rufiventris mussai Rothschild and Hartert

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 : 221-222

Rhipidura rufiventris mussai Rothschild and Hartert

Rhipidura rufiventris mussai Rothschild and Hartert, 1924 (March): 52 (St. Matthias or Mussa Island).

Now Rhipidura rufiventris mussai Rothschild and Hartert, 1924 . See Watson and Mayr, 1986: 540, Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 392, and del Hoyo et al., 2006: 238.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 651186 , adult male, collected on Mussau (5 Mussa), 01.30S, 149.40E ( Papua New Guinea, 1984), St. Matthias Islands , New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, on 11 June 1923, by Albert F. Eichhorn (no. 8540). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: The unique Eichhorn field number of the holotype was given in the original description. Eichhorn, a brother-inlaw of Meek, had collected with him for many years, and while Meek’s name is not mentioned in connection with this Mussau collection, the numbers are a continuation of Meek’s field numbers. This trip of Eichhorn’s was probably organized via Meek, as it was a continuation of the New Hanover Expedition (see Rhipidura rufiventris albertorum above). Rothschild and Hartert did not mention the number of specimens in their type series, although they gave measurements for males and females. Paratypes are AMNH 651185 and 651187–651192, three males and four females, all collected on Mussau in May to July 1923. These eight specimens also comprise the type series of Rhipidura rufiventris mussaui Hartert, 1924 (October) (see below).

Hartert (1928: 221) did not list the type of mussai in his list of types in the Rothschild Collection, and AMNH 651186 bears a Rothschild type label with only the later Hartert name, mussaui (see below). I have added an AMNH type label to this specimen to indicate that it is also the holotype of the earlier Rothschild and Hartert name, mussai.