Prosthemadera novae-seelandiae phoebe Kemp

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 : 169

Prosthemadera novae-seelandiae phoebe Kemp

Prosthemadera novae-seelandiae phoebe Kemp, 1912: 124 (Umawera, Hokianga, North Island).

Now Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae novaeseelandiae (Gmelin, 1788) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 448, Dickinson, 2003: 435, Higgins et al., 2008: 587, and Checklist Committee, 2010: 290–291.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 693983 , adult male, collected at Umawera , ca. 35.17S, 173.35E, Hokianga Harbour , North Island, New Zealand, in October 1907, by Robin Kemp. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Kemp gave the collecting locality and wing measurement (150 mm) of the type and said that it was in his possession. Hartert (1928: 204) listed this specimen as the type and noted that two Kemp specimens had come to the Rothschild Collection [with the Mathews Collection] with very different measurements and that only the type had an exact locality. Both of those specimens are now in AMNH and my measurements are almost the same as those of Hartert: 150 mm for the holotype and 142 mm for the unsexed specimen. The unsexed specimen has no original label and no exact locality, and there is no indication on Mathews’ label that he obtained it from Kemp; therefore, I do not consider that it has type status. The holotype bears Kemp’s original label, a Mathews type label with reference to Kemp’s description, and a Rothschild type label. I did not find it listed in Mathews’ catalog.