Ptilotis lewinii nea Mathews

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 : 78-79

Ptilotis lewinii nea Mathews

Ptilotis lewinii nea Mathews, 1912a: 404 (Victoria) .

Now Meliphaga lewinii lewinii (Swainson, 1837) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 372, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 257–258, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 589.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 694673 , unsexed, collected at The Basin, Dandenong Range, 37.50S, 145.21E ( USBGN, 1957), Victoria, Australia, in 1901, by Thomas H. Tregellas (no. 329). From the Mathews Collection (no. 1378), via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews did not designate a type in the original description, only giving the range as Victoria, and later ( Mathews, 1913a: 273) restricting the type locality to ‘‘Dandenong.’’ In fact, there are only two Victorian specimens, both from The Basin , Dandenong Range , that might have been in Mathews’ Collection when nea was published on 31 January 1912 ; I only found one of them in Mathews’ catalog. AMNH 694673 bears Tregellas’ original label, and a Mathews and a Rothschild type label, both labeled ‘‘ nea. ’’ Mathews’ catalog number 1378 appears on both type labels, although it is not listed in the original description. This specimen is labeled ‘‘female’’ both in Mathews’ catalog and on the Rothschild type label, but not on the field label or on Mathews’ type label, although a wing measurement of 102 [mm] appears there. The second specimen, AMNH 694672 , adult male, collected at The Basin , Dandenong Ranges in October 1902 by L.G. Chandler (no. 770), was collected early enough, but I was unable to find it listed in Mathews’ catalog and do not know when Mathews received it. Mathews (1942: 54) listed Chandler as one of the collectors who sent him specimens at ‘‘irregular intervals during many years.’’ Because of uncertainty as to when this second specimen came into Mathews’ hands and because Mathews’ type label marked ‘‘ nea ’’ on AMNH 694673 indicated his chosen type, I hereby designate AMNH 694673 the lectotype of Ptilotis lewinii nea . The probable paralectotype is AMNH 694672 .

Salomonsen (1967: 372) recognized nea; Schodde and Mason (1999: 258) and Higgins et al. (2008: 589) considered it a synonym of nominate lewinii .

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1966: 225–226) suppressed the specific name Certhia chrysotis Latham, 1801 , ‘‘for the purposes of the Law of Priority, but not for those of the Law of Homonymy.’’ Meliphaga chrysotis Lewin, 1808 , which applies to this species, is a homonym of the Latham name, and as Swainson’s name, lewinii (proposed as a replacement), is the next available name, it now becomes the valid name.