Zosterops ceylonensis Holdsworth, 1872

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 : 8-9

Zosterops ceylonensis Holdsworth

Zosterops ceylonensis Holdsworth, 1872: 459 (Nuwara Eliya and on the upper hills).

Now Zosterops ceylonensis Holdsworth, 1872 . See Mees, 1957: 22–26, Rasmussen and Anderton, 2005: 551, and van Balen, 2008: 447.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 699930 , adult male, collected at Nuwara Eliya , 06.58N, 80.46E ( Lozupone et al., 2004), Sri Lanka (5 Ceylon), 28 January 1871, by E. Holdsworth. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: No type was designated in the original description, nor did Holdsworth say how many specimens he had, noting only that it was one of the commonest birds at Nuwara Eliya. Three specimens from the original series came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection, two males and one female. Hartert (1928: 208) listed as the type and tied a Rothschild type label on a male from Nuwara Eliya, collected on 28 January 1871, choosing the specimen bearing two Holdsworth labels, each marked ‘‘s Type ; ’’ this specimen is now AMNH 699931 . Without a doubt, this specimen with its Rothschild type label, has been considered the type. It was so cataloged when the Rothschild Collection came to AMNH and has been housed with the types since then. However, because there are two male specimens bearing the same data, this did not serve to designate one of them the lectotype .

Mees (1957: 24), perhaps not checking the AMNH types or having been loaned the other male specimen, now AMNH 699930, and based on the fact that the label data matched the data given by Hartert (1928: 208), decided to confirm Hartert’s designation but cited the AMNH number of the specimen that he examined! Because Hartert’s designation was ambiguous, there seems to be no alternative but to accept Mees’ designation despite the fact that the other specimen, bearing the Rothschild type label, has always been considered the type. I have added an AMNH type label to AMNH 699930 but have retained AMNH 699931, now a paralectotype, in the type collection with a tag explaining the situation.

The female specimen, AMNH 699932, collected at Nuwara Eliya on 16 October 1868, is also a paralectotype and there are two paralectotypes in BMNH ( Warren and Harrison, 1971: 103). All three of the AMNH specimens bear Holdsworth’s catalog no. 181. This new form was illustrated in Holdsworth (1872: pl. XX).