Meliphaga phrygia tregellasi Mathews

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 153

Meliphaga phrygia tregellasi Mathews

Meliphaga phrygia tregellasi Mathews, 1912a: 402 (Victoria) .

Now Anthochaera phrygia (Shaw, 1794) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 436, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 304, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 622–623.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 691851 , adult male, collected at Mulgrave , 37.55S, 145.12E ( USBGN, 1957), Victoria, Australia, on 3 December 1908, by Thomas Tregellas. From the Mathews Collection (no. 2812) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description and gave the range as ‘‘ Victoria, South Australia.’’ The holotype bears Tregellas’ original label, Mathews and Rothschild type labels, and a ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it is illustrated in Mathews (1924: pl. 525, opp. p. 404, text p. 405), where it is confirmed as the type of tregellasi. The following specimens are paratypes: AMNH 691834 (Mathews no. 3153), sex?, Gippsland, undated, (entered in catalog only as ‘‘ Victoria’ ’) ; AMNH 691837 (not found in catalog but collected on same day as next), female, Bayswater , 26 December 1908 ; AMNH 691838 (Mathews no. 3143), female juvenile, Bayswater, 26 December 1908. Three other specimens are possible paratypes, but I did not find them in Mathews’ catalog and do not know when he received them: AMNH 691833 , male, Blackwood , South Australia, 8 June 1909 ; AMNH 691839 , male, Melton , 6 February 1905 ; AMNH 691849 , male, Lang Lang, 1898. AMNH 691850 (14718) Moorabool, December 1895, is not a paratype, as it was not cataloged by Mathews until 5 November 1912, after the 31 January 1912 publication date of tregellasi. Other specimens in AMNH were collected too late or were never in Mathews’ collection .

This species is usually placed in the genus Xanthomyza ; but based on their phylogenetic analysis of molecular data from their studies on the Meliphagidae, Driskell and Christidis (2004: 953) merged the genus Xanthomyza in the genus Anthochaera .

McAllan (2007: 140) discussed the spelling of the genus Xanthomyza and decided that the original spelling by Swainson, Zanthomiza , was a valid and available name. Christidis and Boles (2008: 186) and Higgins et al. (2008: 622) accepted this interpretation, without mentioning the subsequent publication by Schodde et al. (2007: 276), pointing out that McAllan had failed to consider the relevant article in the Code (ICZN, 1999: 42, Art. 33.2.3.1), under which ‘‘ Xanthomyza is a justified emendation, with Swainson (1837) as author, after Salomonsen (1967), and should be accepted as the correct spelling.’’ Thus, when the original genus is used in taxonomic lists, the spelling Xanthomyza should be used.