Miniopterus australis robustior Revilliod, 1914

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 : 394

Miniopterus australis robustior Revilliod, 1914

Nova Caledonia, A. Zool. 1: 359, plate x, 2 tables. (1914)

Common name. Loyalty Bentwing-bat.

Current name. Miniopterus robustior Revilliod, 1914 ; following Simmons (2005).

? Syntype. M.5172, female, skull, body in alc., Kepenete [= Chépénéhé], Lifou, Loyalty Islands, collected 23 April 1912. Registered in AM on 12 September 1931, received in exchange from “Natural History Museum, Bâle” (= NMB). The specimen is inadvertently listed as a male by Flannery (1995c) .

Condition. Cranium missing right zygomatic arch, fracture in right parietal; dentaries complete. Body in alc.: broken right forearm (near elbow), fur slip on both ventral and dorsal surfaces of abdominal area.

Comments. Troughton believed this specimen was a “co-type” and he marked it as such in the M Register but there is no record of an original field number or NMB registration number. Although from the original series collected by Sarasin and Roux, we are not sure if it is a syntype. Hill (1971) had a similar problem with a specimen of this taxon marked “co-type” in the BMNH. Revilliod (1914) did not designate a holotype but his description is based on nine specimens for which he lists registration numbers and individual measurements. The nine syntypes and four skulls listed by Revilliod are listed as being in the NMB by Oakeley (1998). Multiple specimens are registered under some numbers and she lists a total of 16 specimens, all listed as syntypes. The implication from Oakeley (1998) is that all specimens were listed as “typus” without an indication of those used in Revilliod’s description.