Rhipidura mayi Ashby

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 : 232

Rhipidura mayi Ashby

Rhipidura mayi Ashby, 1911b: 41 (Anson Bay, Northern Territory).

Now Rhipidura dryas dryas Gould, 1843 . See Watson and Mayr, 1986: 553, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 476–478.

SYNTYPE: AMNH 650649, unsexed, collected at Anson Bay, 13.20S, 130.05E ( Storr, 1977: 105), Northern Territory, Australia, in November 1910, by C.E. May for Edwin Ashby. From the Mathews Collection (no. 11643) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Ashby’s description of this form was based on two specimens that had been preserved with formalin, and he did not designate a type. AMNH 650649 was collected in November 1910, has an Ashby label remaining on it, and is marked ‘‘type’’, probably by Ashby. The specimen also bears a Mathews type label, with his catalog number 11643, and a Rothschild type label.

There are four additional Anson Bay specimens (AMNH 650650–650653) that had been in the Mathews Collection, three of which he cataloged (nos. 11644–11646) as having come from Ashby. AMNH 650653 (Mathews no. 11644) was collected in January 1911, and there is a note in Mathews’ hand on the reverse of the label: ‘‘From the type locality. Collected by May’’. The three remaining specimens, AMNH 650650, 650651, and 650652, have only the date 1911. None of these specimens has an original Ashby label.

The description of this form was published 1 July 1911 in Emu . In the 1 April 1912 Emu , in a note dated 12 December 1911, Ashby (1912: 259) stated that he had received a series of Rhipidura (fulvifrons) mayi from Anson Bay. It is my interpretation that Ashby’s two syntypes were probably collect- ed in 1910 and were used by him in the description of mayi on 1 July 1911. The one specimen in AMNH collected in January 1911 was said to be ‘‘from the type locality’’, showing that Mathews did not consider it one of the syntypes. This would indicate that all of the 1911 specimens were topotypes. A note in the SAMA register ‘‘formalin-injected and dried’’ (P. Horton and B. Blaylock, personal commun.) explains the fact that none of the AMNH specimens appears to have been immersed in formalin, with the formalin having been injected into the body without wetting the feathers. They are, in fact, poorly made skins, particularly about the head, which in some cases lack cotton in the eyes and are little more than mummies.

If the above supposition is correct, then the other three specimens with claims to type status should be reexamined. One 1911 mummy specimen in ANSP was listed by Meyer de Schauensee (1957: 213) as a ‘‘cotype’’, so labeled by Ashby, who presented it to ANSP in 1917. Nate Rice (personal commun.) has confirmed these data. Another 1911 mummy specimen marked ‘‘co-type’’ by Ashby was presented by him to WAM in 1913 (R. Johnstone, personal commun.). A third 1911 mummy specimen is in SAMA and was (unnecessarily) designated the neotype by Condon (1951: 37, 68) (P. Horton and B. Blaylock, personal commun.). In question here is Ashby’s use of the term ‘‘co-type’’. It is likely that the other syntype perished in the fire at Ashby’s home ( Whittell, 1954: 19).