Cuscus chrysorrhous var. goldiei Ramsay, 1877d

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 : 325

Cuscus chrysorrhous var. goldiei Ramsay, 1877d [not 1876]

Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (ser. 1) 1(4): 395. (March 1877).

Common name. Spotted Cuscus .

Current name. Spilocuscus maculatus goldiei (Ramsay, 1877d) , following Groves (2005d). Helgen & Flannery (2004) suggest that this and other taxa currently recognized as subspecies of S. maculatus (É. Geoffroy, 1803a) , are likely to represent full allopatric species.

? Syntype. PA.543, adult female, skin mount without skull, entered in the Palmer Register by Palmer in c. 1878 as “ Cuscus chrysorrhous ”, “f” [= female], “ Port Moresby ” obtained from “Gouldie” [= Andrew Goldie]. The original metal Palmer tag is attached with old wire to the right wrist .

Condition. Skin mount, missing both ears, fur colour faded.

Type locality. Port Moresby region, Central Province, Papua New Guinea.

Comments. Ramsay’s original description is based on fur colour and a few body measurements, the latter given for one specimen only. However, he clearly states that his description was based on two adult females obtained from Andrew Goldie during the previous year. Ramsay does not specify the collecting locality of these two specimens, but it is implied to be the Port Moresby region from which Goldie’s bird collection was “chiefly obtained”. Further , he merely states that he was permitted to examine Goldie’s material, and does not indicate whether the AM obtained the two adult females.

An X-ray image of the skin mount PA.543 taken in 2013 revealed that it did not contain cranium or dentaries. It is not known whether the skin mount had a skull when originally received at the AM. Ramsay does not mention skull or dental characters of this entity in either his original or subsequent publications. Body measurements given by Ramsay compared to those of PA.543 (in brackets) are: head length 4 inches = 102 mm (vs. c. 100–110 mm); head-body length, 26.5 inches = 673 mm (vs. c. 480 mm) and tail length 17 inches = 432 mm (vs. c. 320 mm). Our measurements were taken along the dorsal median surface of the stuffed skin and are necessarily approximate but it is evident that PA.543 is a much smaller animal than the one measured by Ramsay. PA.543 might, however, be the second of the two specimens used by Ramsay in his description.

We have not found any indication in the taxonomic literature that Ramsay’s original material has been reexamined. Further, the authority that identified this specimen as a possible type in the AM database is not recorded, though it appears to have been done during Tim Flannery’s employment by the AM and possibly derived from unpublished work by J. Mahoney (T. Flannery, pers. comm. October 2016). The AM database states that AM Archives documentation supports this specimen as being a likely syntype but we have not yet identified the relevant document. The original entry in Palmer’s hand for PA.543 is “ Cuscus chrysorrhous , F [= female], Port Moresby, Gouldie” against which is stamped “Gallery”, indicating a skin mount. There is no subsequent entry indicating that it was considered to be a type. We have not yet been able to determine the fate of the skull of PA.543, nor have we found an entry in the Palmer Register that might be the other female specimen mentioned by Ramsay .

The Palmer Register entry of “Gouldie” against PA.543 is significant. It is most likely an incorrect spelling of Andrew Goldie as Ramsay consistently misspelt Goldie’s name in this way during the early phase of their relationship (e.g., see Ramsay 1876a: 164, published in July); an entry in the A Register for December 1876 is the first correctly spelt entry for Goldie that we have found and all subsequent entries correctly spell his surname. If Palmer directly copied information from specimen labels into the register, it suggests that PA.543 was from the first collections received from Goldie during 1876, and not from subsequent material of this taxon obtained during Goldie’s second exploration of New Guinea during 1877–78, from which further specimens of this taxon were reported by Ramsay (1879b).

The year of publication is entrenched in the literature as 1876, however Fletcher (1896) gives the publication date of part 4 of vol. 1 as March 1877.