Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris regius Salomonsen

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 : 155-156

Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris regius Salomonsen

Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris regius Salomonsen, 1966a: 11 (King Island, Bass Strait, Australia).

Now Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris dubius Gould, 1837 . See Salomonsen, 1967: 438, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 325–327, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 582– 583.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 693497 , subadult male, collected on King Island , 39.50S, 144.00E ( USBGN, 1957), Bass Strait, Tasmania, Australia, on 22 April 1914, by Thomas Tregellas.

COMMENTS: Salomonsen gave the AMNH number of the holotype in the original description. It was from the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection, but was not cataloged by Mathews. The number ‘‘752’’ on Tregellas’ label refers to the number of this species in Mathews (1908).

This specimen is apparently unique, and the King Island population is probably now extinct ( Schodde and Mason, 1999: 326). It was already rare in 1914; Tregellas’ note on the reverse of his label reads: ‘‘Very scarce on the island, & only seen on the correa, where this specimen was obtained.’’ I have reexamined this holotype and find that my measurements are almost exactly the same as those given by Salomonsen: wing 71 mm, bill from base 32, tarsus 22. While the measurements of bill and tarsus are large, the specimen does not appear to be aberrant. There are a number of feathers missing on the top of the bill, but Salomonsen’s measurement was made from the joint of the culmen with the skull. Because individuals in all populations are quite variable in measurements, some approaching those of the type of regius, and because additional specimens from King Island are unlikely, I agree with Schodde and Mason (1999: 326) that regius should be considered a synonym of dubius.