Muscicapa molitor (Lichtenstein) Küster, 1850: 12

Frahnert, Sylke, Louette, Michel & Eckhoff, Pascal, 2021, Type specimens of birds of the genus Batis (Aves: Platysteiridae) at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Zootaxa 5052 (2), pp. 249-260 : 255

Muscicapa molitor (Lichtenstein) Küster, 1850: 12

Now: Batis molitor molitor ( Küster, 1850) . See Mayr et al. (1986: 381).

Syntype: ZMB 2838 , skin, female, collected by L. Krebs in Kaffernland [ South Africa] .

Syntype: ZMB 2840 , skin, female, collected by L. Krebs in Kaffernland [ South Africa] .

Type locality: “südliches Afrika” [Southern Africa], ascertained as South Africa.

Remarks: Lichtenstein used the name Batis molitor in the collection without describing the species. As Küster (in Hahn & Küster 1850) gave the first description for this species, he is regarded as the author of that species’ name. In the description no type was chosen.

Theoretically, all the specimens in the Berlin collection of 1850 which are determined as B. molitor [4, General Collection Catalogue ZMB-AVES, Lichtenstein (1854)] should be regarded as syntypes [ZMB 2837‒2840, Muscicapa (Platystira) molitor ]. However, Küster (1850) only described the plumage of the female and gave only the female phenotype in the figure. Therefore, only females of this species can be regarded as belonging to the type series (contra Neumann 1907a: 356). This is of special significance because in the collection catalogue and on the labels, as well as in Lichtenstein (1854), both males and females of Batis molitor were identified as belonging to that species. Thus, Küster must have seen both males and females in the collection but did not describe the very obvious sexual dimorphism of the species.

The four specimens of B. molitor in the collection from around 1850 were all collected by Ludwig Krebs. Lichtenstein associated many birds from this collector to the locality “Kaffernland” without separating the different localities given by Krebs. In the shipment lists, Muscicapa molitor is given for the ninth and tenth shipment (two males and four females, which arrived on 22.6. 1825 in Berlin) and for the twelfth shipment (four males and three females, which arrived on 21.6. 1830 in Berlin) ( Ffolliott & Liversidge 1971). Of these, only three specimens are listed in the entry catalogue (1811‒1857) by Lichtenstein, 184/116‒118 (one female, two unsexed) for 1825. No details for the shipment that arrived at the museum in 1830 are available in that catalogue. Another handwritten catalogue of 1825 ( Anonymous 1825) provides the information that in 1825 four specimens of Batis molitor (two males and two females) of the ninth shipment of Krebs were mounted for the collection. Thus, it seems most probable that the four specimens (ZMB 2837‒2840) in the collection belonged to that shipment. As the shipment arrived from “Vorgebirge der Guten Hoffnung” [ South Africa], South Africa is regarded as the type locality. Stresemann (1954) and Ffolliott & Liversidge (1971) gave Baviaans River 1824 as collecting data without mentioning in detail where the information came from. A printed auction catalogue of 1835 lists two specimens of Muscicapa molitor from “Kaffernland” (nos. 637 and 638, Lichtenstein 1835). Possibly the specimens that arrived in 1830 were given directly in the collection of duplicates. It was intended that they would be given away through auctions or exchange, in which case they were not mounted and so were not available for scientific work in the collection. Specimens ZMB 2834‒2836 do not belong to the type series as they are males and were listed as Muscicapa (Platystira) melanoleuca Lichtenstein, 1854 in the General Collection Catalogue ZMB-AVES. ZMB 2837 and ZMB 2839 are determined as Muscicapa (Platysteira) molitor in that catalogue, but they are also males and thus cannot be types. Only ZMB 2838 and ZMB 2840 are females and are regarded as the syntypes for B. molitor . Stresemann (1954) selected ZMB 2837 as the type specimen, according to a note on the label, evidently without realising that Küster (1850) had described the female only.