Parus major planorum Hartert

Pachycephalidae, Aegithalidae, Remizidae, Paridae, Sittidae, Neosittidae, Certhiidae, Rhabdornithidae, Climacteridae, Dicaeidae, Pardalotidae, Nectariniidae, And & Lecroy, Mary, 2010, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 8. Passeriformes:, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2010 (333), pp. 1-178 : 75

Parus major planorum Hartert

Parus major planorum Hartert, 1905c: 499 (South Punjab).

Now Parus major planorum Hartert, 1905 . See Snow, 1967c: 107, Eck and Martens, 2006: 38– 40, Dickinson et al., 2006a: 77, Gosler and Clement, 2007: 739–741, and Dickinson, 2009b: 16.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 680545 , unsexed, collected in the southern Punjab, Pakistan, undated, by E.W. Cleveland (no. 201). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartert gave Cleveland’s unique number ‘‘201’’ for the holotype in the original description. The ‘‘N.J.’’ that he cited is an ‘‘N1’’ within a circle that appears on each of Cleveland’s specimens ; its significance is unknown. Hartert gave the range of planorum as the plains of northern India (before the separation of Pakistan), probably south to the Vindhya Range. Paratypes in AMNH are the following: AMNH 680546 , south Punjab, collected by Cleveland (no. 147) ; AMNH 680547 , Bundelkhand , 16 January 1872, collected by Marshall ; AMNH 680548 , and 680549, Gorakhpur , 15 August 1878, collected by Cleveland (nos. 121 and 150) .

Parus major planorum is usually considered a synomym of Parus major nipalensis Hodgson, 1837 ; however, Dickinson (2009a: 167) showed that Parus nipalensis Hodgson, 1837 , and Parus (Suthora) nipalensis Hodgson, 1837 , were published simultaneously and are primary homonyms. Acting as First Reviser under the Code (ICZN, 1999: 30, Art. 24.2.2), Dickinson (2009b: 16) selected Parus (Suthora) nipalensis as the prior name, leaving Parus nipalensis Hodgson, 1837 , unavailable (ICZN, 1999: 59, Art. 57.2), and noted that Parus major planorum Hartert, 1905 , is an available synonym to replace it. See Dickinson et al. (2006a: 77, fn. 64) and Dickinson (2009a: 167) for the publication date of 1837 for P. nipalensis Hodgson.