Barbatula Fischeri Reichenow, 1880: 181

Frahnert, Sylke, Turner, Donald A. & Bracker, Cordula, 2023, Type specimens and type localities of birds (Aves) collected by Gustav Adolf Fischer (1848 - 1886) in East Africa, Zootaxa 5334 (1), pp. 1-84 : 20

Barbatula Fischeri Reichenow, 1880: 181 (in Fischer & Reichenow 1880b).

Now: Pogoniulus bilineatus fischeri (Reichenow, 1880) . See Peters (1948: 50); but see also Nwanko et al. (2018).

Holotype: ZMB 2000.40044 (B 19019, Fischer no. 451), skin, male, collected on “ Sansibar ”, [06.06.1880].

Type locality: “ Ost-Afrika” [ East Africa ], from the original description, and ascertained as “Sansibar” [ Zanzibar, Tanzania], the locality of the holotype (van Someren 1922) .

Remarks: In the original description, no type was chosen nor were inventory numbers for specimens provided, but measurements for one and the locality “Ost-Afrika” were given, though no collector was mentioned. However, as the species was described with another new species collected by Fischer and as the species was named after him, Fischer would likely have been the collector. Therefore, ZMB 2000.40044 (no. 451) is regarded as the holotype; it was also collected in Jun 1880 and a new species of Barbatula from Zanzibar was mentioned in Fischer (1880b). There are two further Fischer specimens of this species from Zanzibar (ZMB 2000.40045 and ZMB 2000.40046), but as one was collected in 1881, and with no date available for the other, we do not regard them as types.

Additional Comment: The status of the form fischeri requires further research. While its song is almost identical to that of Pogoniulus simplex , rather than P. bilineatus Sundevall , based on molecular data it is nested within P. b. bilineatus ( Nwanko et al. 2018) .