Rhipidura harterti Ogilvie-Grant

LeCroy, M., 2008, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 7. Passeriformes: Sylviidae, Muscicapidae, Platysteiridae, Maluridae, Acanthizidae, Monarchidae, Rhipiduridae, And Petroicidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 313 (1), pp. 1-287 : 234-235

Rhipidura harterti Ogilvie-Grant Rhipidura rufifrons granti Hartert

Rhipidura harterti Ogilvie-Grant, 1915: 149 (Rendova) .

Now Rhipidura rufifrons granti Hartert, 1918 . See Hartert, 1918b: 60, Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 392, and del Hoyo et al., 2006: 231.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 650795 , adult male, collected on Rendova Island , 08.32S, 157.20E ( USBGN, 1974a), Solomon Islands, on 27 February 1904, by Albert S. Meek (no. A.1381). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: When Ogilvie-Grant named R. harterti , he did not designate a type, but had applied the name to Rendova Island birds, noting that BMNH specimens from both Rendova and Gizo islands differed similarly from R. rubrofrontata from Guadalcanal Island; his type series comprised specimens of R. rubrofrontata from Rendova and Gizo islands in BMNH and birds from Rendova and Gizo in the Rothschild Collection assigned by Rothschild and Hartert (1905: 261) to R. rubrofrontata . Because the name R. harterti Ogilvie-Grant was preoccupied by Rhipidura flabellifera harterti Mathews, 1912 , Hartert (1918b: 60) then provided the replacement name R. rufifrons granti and designated as lectotype a specimen in the Rothschild Collection that had been included in Ogilvie-Grant’s type series. Warren and Harrison (1971: 232) listed a single male specimen in their list of types in BMNH but did not indicate its type status.

Watson and Mayr (1986: 555) implied that Ogilvie-Grant incorrectly applied Mathews’ name to the Rendova birds. However, it is quite clear from his description that Ogilvie-Grant was introducing a new name. It was Hartert who pointed out that Mathews’ name had been published prior to that of Ogilvie-Grant and then supplied a nomen novum for Ogilvie-Grant’s name.