Echidna (Tachyglossus) lawesii Ramsay, 1877b

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 : 298-299

Echidna (Tachyglossus) lawesii Ramsay, 1877b

Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (ser. 1) 2(1): 32, 1 unnumbered plate. (July 1877).

Common name. Short-beaked Echidna .

Current name. Tachyglossus aculeatus lawesii ( Ramsay, 1877b) , following Groves (2005a) and Jackson & Groves (2015), who consider that subspecies of aculeatus and associated names require taxonomic clarification.

Holotype. PA.399 by subsequent determination. Skin mount, skull in situ, indeterminate sex from skin mount, given as male (Ramsay). Entered in A Register in March 1877 (predating allocation of registration numbers) as “1 Echidna sp nov. Port Moresby Rev J Lawes” and assigned a registration number in the Palmer Register in c. 1878.

Condition. Skin mount in good condition, very sparse fur on ventrum below throat. It is not clear how much of the skull is retained in the skin mount.

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

Comments. Ramsay states that the description was based on a single, apparently adult, male specimen obtained from Port Moresby by Rev. Lawes some months prior to publication. The original entry by Palmer in the P Register is “? type of E. lawesi?” “ New Guinea ” but collector, sex of specimen, and more precise locality are not given.