Dendrolagus deltae Troughton & Le Souef, 1936a

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

Dendrolagus deltae Troughton & Le Souef, 1936a

Aust. Zool. 8(3): 195. (29 June 1936).

Common name. Huon Tree-kangaroo.

Current name. Dendrolagus matschiei Förster & Rothschild, 1907 ; following Groves (2005d).

Holotype. M.5418 by original designation. Male, skull, study skin, no locality data entered in M Register, presented by Taronga Zoo Trust, registered 4 December 1933 .

Condition. Cranium missing both upper canines, the deformed third upper left incisor has overgrown the socket of the missing 2nd upper incisor; cranium in good condition. Both dentaries complete. Whole study skin complete and in good condition. Deformed and overgrown nail of digit 5 of right pes.

Type locality. “Region of Mt Pratt, in the north-eastern area of the Delta Division of Papua” (Troughton & Le Souef, 1936a: 195). Locality data considered erroneous by Kirsch & Calaby (1977). Groves (1982) also rejected Mt Pratt as the origin of the type material, which he believed came from the Huon Peninsula. Helgen et al. (2011: 250) discussed this entity at length and concluded that Mt Pratt could be an eastern outlier of Mt Bosavi, Southern Highlands Province, PNG.

Paratype. M.5420 by original designation. Female subadult, skull, flat skin, “New Guinea ” (M Register), registered 3 January 1934, presented by Taronga Zoo Trust, Sydney.

Comments. Description based on two specimens. The collection date and collectors of these specimens were unknown to Troughton and Le Souef, who stated that “both specimens were from the region of Mt Pratt, in the northeastern area of the Delta Division of Papua ” and were obtained “doubtless through the co-operation of Papuan authorities”. Troughton regarded deltae to be a doubtful species based on erroneous locality data provided by Le Souef for zoo animals, as indicated by his handwritten comments on a copy of the published paper, as reported by Kirsch & Calaby (1977). The AM Mammal section library has a reprint of Troughton & Le Souef (1936a) on which Troughton has used a type writer to add a footnote on the first page: “Note: Dendrolagus spadix is recognized as valid, but D. deltae remains uncertain owing to the doubtful locality provided for Zoo specimens by co-author Le Souef. The marked interorbital inflation indicates that deltae may be a race of goodfellowi , pending examination of an overall series of that species. E.Le.G.T.”.