Mus hermannsburgensis Waite, 1896

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 : 364-365

Mus hermannsburgensis Waite, 1896

Report of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, Zoology part 2, 405, plate 26, fig. 5. (February 1896) .

Common name. Sandy Inland Mouse.

Current name. Pseudomys hermannsburgensis ( Waite, 1896) , following Jackson & Groves (2015).

Lectotype. M.1070A lectotype designated by Troughton (1932c). Skin mount, sex indeterminate from skin mount, cranium and dentaries. Locality written in Waite’s hand in register as “George Gill Range H’burg”. Presented by W. Baldwin Spencer, collector and collection date not given, registered on 11 April 1896. Possibly specimen “D” of Waite (1896); but see below. Sex not indicated for “D” in Waite’s original register entry but cited as female by Waite (1896).

Condition. Incomplete cranium, missing right zygomatic arch, missing occipital area, hole in right frontal, and detached right auditory capsule; both dentaries complete. Incomplete and damaged mount, tape holding head and tail tip in place, missing right ear, bald patch on the ventral surface, toes on the front right manus are almost detached, and missing distal part of the lateral digit on the left manus.

Type locality. George Gill Range, Hermannsburg, Northern Territory, Australia.

Paralectotype. M.1070B, sex indeterminate, skull, skin mounted. Presented by W. Baldwin Spencer, registered on 11 April 1896. Possibly specimen “E” of Waite (1896); but see below. Two specimens were registered under the one number, M.1070 but the original entry did not indicate a duplicate.

Comments. Waite provided measurements for five specimens, one male and four females, which he designated specimens A to E (A being the only male), and gave a collection date as February 1895 for the series. Waite registered two specimens in the AM under the one number, M.1070, with the M Register entry annotated “D”. Troughton (1932c), noted that neither specimen was marked as “D”; he selected what he considered to be the larger of the two, as specimen D. In his unpublished type specimen list, Troughton (1956) listed M.1070B as a “co-type” of this taxon. Aitken (1976) stated that specimens labelled B and C (skulls only) are in the SAM. He discussed the identity of the three suspected paralectotypes in the MV listed by Dixon (1970). Aitken (1976) suggested that the AM skin mount (M.1070B) could be the only syntype body seemingly unaccounted for: a female skin, the skull of which he believed was either specimen B or C in the SAM. However, Aitken did not realize that a skull was associated with M.1070B. One possibility is that Waite registered his specimen E as a duplicate under specimen D, but failed to record this in the M Register; this action would have been contrary to Spencer’s instruction in correspondence that specimens should be returned except for one “type”. Alternatively, the duplicate specimen M.1070B may be a sixth specimen available to Waite at the time of his description, but which was not mentioned in his original account. If so, it could be regarded as a part of the type series because it was not explicitly excluded by Waite. Under this scenario, Waite’s specimen E might be amongst unmarked material in the MV listed by Dixon (1970).