Rhipidura malaitae Mayr, 1931

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 : 231

Rhipidura malaitae Mayr

Rhipidura malaitae Mayr, 1931b: 20 (Malaita Island, British Solomon Islands).

Now Rhipidura malaitae Mayr, 1931 . See Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 393, and del Hoyo et al., 2006: 231.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 226985 , adult male, collected on Malaita Island , 3000 ft, Solomon Islands, on 4 April 1930, by William F. Coultas and Walter J. Eyerdam on the Whitney South Sea Expedition (no. 39854).

COMMENTS: Mayr gave the AMNH number of the holotype in the original description but did not say how many specimens he examined. Paratypes are AMNH 226972– 226984 and 226986–227008 ; of these, the following were exchanged: AMNH 226973 to USNM ; AMNH 226977 and 226993 to BBM ; AMNH 226984 , 226988 , and 227007 to Cleveland Museum of Natural History ; AMNH 226990 to NRM ; AMNH 226991 to CM ; AMNH 226997 and 227004 to ANSP ; AMNH 226999 and 227008 to ZMB ; and AMNH 227002 to J. Berlioz (presumably now in MHNP). AMNH 226998 also was marked in the catalog as exchanged to Cleveland , but it is still in the AMNH collection, and AMNH 227000 is not and is probably the specimen sent .

The Whitney Expedition ship France anchored at Su’u, 09.10S, 160.55E ( Times Atlas ), from which locality Coultas and Eyerdam walked across Malaita Island , collecting at several localities, and were picked up by the ship at ‘‘ Ulambari’ ’ (5 Olomburi , 09.03S, 161.10E, Times Atlas ) on the other side. On 4 April , they were camped at Arola (3000 ft, 09.51S, 160.50E; USBGN, 1974a), a 10 hours walk from the east coast. Although Hamlin’s name is printed on the label, he was at this time collecting on Gower Island (Coultas’ journal, Vol. V of unpublished Whitney Expedition journals, AMNH Department of Ornithology Archives) .

Mayr and Diamond (2001) considered R. malaitae an allospecies in the superspecies R. rufidorsa .