Ailuroedus crassirostris blaauwi Mathews

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 : 79-80

Ailuroedus crassirostris blaauwi Mathews

Ailuroedus crassirostris blaauwi Mathews, 1912a: 439 (Richmond River, New South Wales).

Now Ailuroedus crassirostris (Paykull, 1815) . See Mathews, 1913a: 309; 1926: 314–317; Hartert, 1929a: 55; Mayr and Jennings, 1952: 2–3; Mayr, 1962c: 173–175; Gilliard, 1969: 263–266; Beehler and Finch, 1985: 55; Beehler et al., 1986: 220; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 622–624; Dickinson, 2003: 427; Frith and Frith, 2004: 249–250; Christidis and Boles, 2008: 179–180; and Frith and Frith, 2009a: 394.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 679627 , adult female, collected at Rous Mill (= Rous), 28.53S, 153.23E ( USBGN, 1957), Richmond River, New South Wales, Australia, in October 1905, by P. Schrader. From the Mathews Collection (no. 3645) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the type in the original description. I have considered the following specimens paratypes: AMNH 679621–679626, 679628–679632, six males, five females, all collected at Rous or on the Richmond River, between August 1903 and October 1908. The following Mathews catalog numbers apply to this form, but I could not correlate all the numbers with the specimens and some numbers apparently covered more than one specimen bearing the same data: 3643, 3644, 3950, 5535, 5536, 5999, 6000, 6001. The Mathews and Rothschild type labels bear Mathews no. 3646, but Schrader’s label is correctly numbered 3645. The number 3646 in Mathews’ catalog refers to a specimen of Strepera graculina . AMNH 679621 bears a ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it served as the model for Mathews (1926: pl. 730, opp. p. 314; text p. 315), where it is described but not said to be the type. By 1913, Mathews (1913a: 309) considered A. crassirostris monotypic and blaauwi a synonym.

There is still much discussion as to whether Ailuroedus melanotis should be considered a species separate from A. crassirostris . Schodde and Mason (1999: 622–624) gave a thorough discussion of the various treatments and combined the populations in a single species; this was followed by Dickinson (2003: 427). Christidis and Boles (2008: 179– 180) and Frith and Frith (2009a: 394) have followed earlier authors and treated them as separate species, and their treatment is followed here.