Cicinnurus regius coccineifrons Rothschild, 1896

Lecroy, Mary, 2014, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2014 (393), pp. 1-165 : 106

Cicinnurus regius coccineifrons Rothschild

Cicinnurus regius coccineifrons Rothschild (in Rothschild and Hartert), 1896: 10 (Jobi).

Now Cicinnurus regius coccineifrons Rothschild, 1896 . Mayr, 1962d: 198; Mees, 1964b: 34–35; Gilliard, 1969: 192–201; Coates, 1990: 487–495; Cracraft, 1992: 30–32; Frith and Beehler, 1998: 407–417; and Frith and Frith, 2009b: 484.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 678666 , adult male, collected on Yapen (= Japen or Jobi) Island, 01.05S, 136.02E ( Frith and Beehler, 1998: 568), on 11 November 1883, from the F.H.H. Guillemard Collection. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: No type was designated in the original description, Rothschild saying only that he had specimens (plural) and citing the differences that had been previously mentioned by Salvadori, A.B. Meyer, and Guillemard. Hartert (1919: 128), by listing Rothschild’s single Guillemard specimen as the type, designated it the lectotype. There are two additional specimens from the Rothschild Collection that have the locality ‘‘Jobi?’’ on them. They are undated trade skins and are possibly ones referred to by Rothschild; if so, they would be paralectotypes, but there is no indication of when they came into his possession. Specimens mentioned by Salvadori, A.B. Meyer, and Guillemard are paralectotypes. Guillemard (1885c: 655–656) listed five adult males, three juvenile males and one female from Yapen, of which this lectotype is probably one. According to Duncan (1937: 74), Guillemard’s article was published in 1885, not 1886 as cited by Rothschild.

Arbocco et al. (1986: 25) did not accept Hartert’s lectotypification and considered eight of 58 specimens listed by Salvadori (1881: 649) and now in MSNG to be syntypes; because Hartert’s purpose in listing types in the Rothschild Collection was to ‘‘fix’’ them, I consider AMNH 678666 to be the lectotype and the remaining specimens mentioned by Rothschild to be paralectotypes.

Mees (1964b: 34–35, 1982: 170–173) reviewed Cicinnurus regius and accepted only the subspecies C. r. regius and C. r. coccineifrons . Most subsequent authors have accept- ed this treatment, but Cracraft (1992: 30) discussed phylogenetic species limits and stressed the need for genetic information.