Zosterops unica Hartert

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 : 8

Zosterops unica Hartert

Zosterops unica Hartert, 1897d: 520 (Nanga Ramau) .

Now Zosterops palpebrosus unicus Hartert, 1897 . See Mees, 1957: 86–88, Dickinson, 2003: 625, Mees, 2006: 185–188, and van Balen, 2008: 446– 447.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 700075 , adult, collected at Nanga Ramau , Flores Island, Indonesia, in October 1896, by Alfred Everett. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartert based his name on a single specimen, and gave an alternative spelling of the type locality as Nanga Roma, said to be in the Manggarai district. Manggarai is not in south Flores, as Hartert thought, but rather in central western Flores. Mees (2006: 12) gave the modern spelling of Nanga Ramau as Nanga Ramat, and I think this is correct. Nanga Ramat is at 08.20S, 120.41E (USBGN, 1982a). ‘‘Nanga’’ refers to a stream.

I have followed the Code (ICZN, 1999: 35, Art. 30.1.4.3) in considering Zosterops masculine, but it is worth reading the account by Mees (2006: 186–188) of gender changes in this name historically.