Petrogale purpureicollis Le Souef, 1924

Parnaby, Harry E., Ingleby, Sandy & Divljan, Anja, 2017, Type Specimens of Non-fossil Mammals in the Australian Museum, Sydney, Records of the Australian Museum 69 (5), pp. 277-420 : 339-340

Petrogale purpureicollis Le Souef, 1924

Aust. Zool. 3(7): 274. (7 October 1924).

Common name. Purple-necked Rock-wallaby.

Current name. Petrogale purpureicollis Le Souef, 1924 ; following Jackson & Groves (2015).

Holotype. M.3405 by original designation. Male adult, skull ( Fig. 27 ), flat skin, collected by Wilson B. Sinclair, registered 14 June 1924. Collection date not given.

Condition. Cranium missing upper right 3rd incisor, missing posterior boundary of palate; right dentary missing 1st molariform tooth. Flat skin: missing both manus and pes, missing tail tip, one hole in the mid back area. A tag probably dating from the 1920s and attached to the flat skin states “skin 27, skull?”, implying doubt that the skull is correctly matched with the skin. However, we have found no other indication that the skull is mismatched.

Type locality. Ardmore Station, 20 miles SW of Dajarra, north-west Qld, Australia.

Paratypes. (6, by subsequent determination), all collected by W. Sinclair and presented by A. S. Le Souef: M.3404, male, skull, flat skin, and M.3406, female, skull, flat skin, both from “Ardmore Station, Dajarra”, both registered 14 June 1924; and M.3450, female, flat skin, both from “near Ardmore Station, Dajarra”, both registered 8 September 1924; three skulls: S.1678 male, and S.1680, female, both 20 miles SW of Dajarra; S.1681, female, 50 miles North West of Dajarra, all three registered 12 September 1924.

Comments. Le Souef states that he examined five flat skins and seven crania, citing the registration number only for the “type”. All were initially donated to the AM. Annotations in the M Register, likely by Troughton, indicate that in addition to the “type,” all were regarded as paratypes. A note in the remarks section of the M Register against M.3449 and M.3450, probably in Troughton’s hand, states: “ paratypes, these skins were received with four skulls, S.1678–1681, the two skins could not be associated with any of the skulls with certainty.” The remaining two specimens of Le Souef’s original series were sent to the BMNH in October 1926: M.3449, male flat skin from “ 50 miles NW of Dajarra ” and the unassociated male skull S.1679 from “near Ardmore Station, Dajarra ” .

Figures

Figure 27.AM M.3405, holotype skull ofPetrogale purpureicollis Le Souef, 1924. (Photography by Stuart Humphreys).