Dendrolagus dorianus Ramsay, 1883

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 : 331-332

Dendrolagus dorianus Ramsay, 1883

Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (ser. 1) 8(1): 17. (19 June 1883).

Common name. Doria’s Tree-kangaroo.

Current name. Dendrolagus dorianus Ramsay, 1883 ; following Groves (2005d).

? Syntypes. (3): M.792 (not located), sex unknown, skin mount without skull according to Waite (1895), originally entered in register as “ Dendrolagus sp. nov. Astrolabe Range, N. Guinea, Purchased, Burns Philp Co.”, registered 8 December 1892. This specimen was registered at the same time as M.788–91, also listed as purchased from Burns Philp Co. (two Phalanger intercastellanus Thomas, 1895 ; one Dorcopsulus macleayi ( Miklouho-Maclay, 1885c) and one Dorcopsis luctuosa (D’Albertis, 1873)) . 1 M. 792 has not been located in the collection; M.1048, adult male, skull, study skin, the skull having been extracted by Waite; M.1049, sub-adult male, skin, headless, no skull; both “Astrolabe Range, New Guinea ” both registered in March 1896, “Purchased, O.C. (= old collection), Burns Philp and Co.” Comments column of register states: “see M.788 etc., not registered when received and in indifferent condition, signed ERW”.

1 D’Albertis (1874) is the usual citation but is predated by his overlooked but more detailed newspaper account (D’Albertis, 1873) of Halmaturus luctuosus which includes external measurements, body weight and a detailed description of fur colour.

Condition. M.792, unknown, not found; M.1048, incomplete cranium, missing occipital area and right zygomatic arch; damaged flat skin, bald patches on dorsum of head, back and tail base; M.1049, damaged and incomplete flat skin, missing head, right pes detached; bald patches on dorsal tail base.

Comments. It is generally assumed that Ramsay based his description solely on three specimens that were originally in William Macleay’s private collection and now in the MMUS (e.g., Groves 1982). For reasons outlined below, we suspect that Ramsay might have founded this species on additional specimens then in Goldie’s collection, but acquired by the AM in the 1890s, that include the above listed AM material, previously regarded as topotypes. However, a further search of archival material is required to confirm this.

Ramsay provided a description and measurements for an adult male skin and skull, and mentioned an adult female and a young animal of unstated sex. He remarked that the skull was badly corroded by storage in brine which prevented him from taking detailed measurements. Ramsay does not indicate the number of specimens examined but there were at least three, given that he stated that a hunter gave three specimens to Goldie. Miklouho-Maclay (1885d) stated that Ramsay had informed him that the three specimens of D. dorianus in Macleay’s collection had been used in his species description. Miklouho-Maclay (1885d) provided tail and body length measurements from skin mounts of an adult male and female, and a young male; significantly, he expressed regret at not being able to provide any description of dentition beyond that available from teeth visible in a stuffed skin, i.e. he did not have a skull. Miklouho-Maclay emphatically stated that, “as far as he knew”, Macleay’s specimens were the only specimens in existence.

Waite (1895) gave a detailed description and illustrations of the skull of D. dorianus , and stated that a single skull was available. He believed that this and other skins in the AM were topotypes, based on the remarks of Miklouho-Maclay (1885d). Waite indicated that he had found three skins. The first was a skin mount; most likely M.792, as revealed by his initialed remark in the M Register: “this is the specimen referred to in my paper”. He stated that he subsequently found two additional skins, one headless, and “the other contained the skull”. Annotations in the M Register initialed by Waite, and the AM “V” register of photographic negatives (negatives V.1533 –35) indicate that Waite’s skull drawings were based on photographs of M.1048. We conclude that the headless skin is M.1049, the remaining specimen registered at that time.

We suggest that it is possible that the three specimens registered in the AM were available to Ramsay prior to publication of the taxon. All were from a small consignment of mammals from Astrolabe Range. M. 792 was registered in December 1892, before Waite’s employment at the AM. Waite subsequently registered M.1048– 49 in 1896, noting in the M Register that they belonged to an initial consignment “not registered when received and in indifferent condition, signed ERW”. Consequently, although registered in 1892 as purchased from Burns Philp Co (who were agents for Goldie’s material), one possibility is that Ramsay examined, but not necessarily purchased, the three specimens around 1882 or 1883 when Ramsay purchased a large collection of New Guinea material from Goldie, sold through his agents the Mason Brothers. Although over a thousand bird specimens (the “Mason Brothers collection”) were registered in March 1883, not all mammal material was purchased as it was considered to be in poor condition. The comments in the M Register regarding material obtained in 1892 against both the dorianus and other mammal specimens “not registered when received and in indifferent condition” would fit this scenario. Alternatively, the three specimens might have been purchased by the AM in 1892 from Burns Philp and Co as implied in the M Register, perhaps as part of Goldie’s estate. Goldie died in November 1891 (Mullins & Bellamy, 2012) and in 1885 had named Robert Philp of Burns Philp to act as executor to his will (Mullins & Bellamy, 2012: 32). The unpublished report of Ramsay (1892) recommended purchase of material from Goldie’s collection, but that document does not specify species.

Ramsay (1883) states that his material was from the Astrolabe Ranges, but he does not state the collection or collections in which these were housed. His statement “ three specimens were brought to Mr Goldie” has subsequently been taken to mean a type series of only three specimens. However this assumption is unwarranted given that a number of bird taxa described by Ramsay are now known to be based on a larger number of specimens than was alluded to in his original descriptions ( McAllan, 2016). If this was the case, it raises the possibility that Ramsay’s original skull description was based on a skull from the now missingAM skin mount M.792, the skull of which was not known to Waite (1895) and had possibly disintegrated in view of Ramsay’s statement that the skull was much corroded by brine.An alternative explanation is that the damaged skull described by Ramsay was placed in the skin mount prepared from a brine skin, which is now the adult male specimen M. 377 in the MMUS. That specimen either does not contain a skull, or has an incomplete skull augmented with a filler such as plaster of paris (Dr Jude Philp, Macleay Museum, pers. comm. 2015). It would seem that Ramsay either based his skull description on that specimen, or a then unregistered specimen in Goldie’s collection. However, it seems incongruous that the only known prepared skull of the newly described species would be placed back in a skin mount, unless the skull was deemed to be so degraded that such an action would not be seen as a loss.