Pteropus

Turni, Hendrik & Kock, Dieter, 2008, Type specimens of bats (Chiroptera: Mammalia) in the collections of the Museum f r Naturkunde, Berlin, Zootaxa 1869 (1), pp. 1-82 : 78

Pteropus phaiops Temminck, 1827

Temminck, C. J. (1827) Monographies de mammalogie, ou Description de quelques genres de mammifères, dont les espèces ont été observées dans les différens musées de l'Europe. Tome 1: 178 [1–268]. Paris 1827.

Valid name: Pteropus melanopogon Peters, 1867

Referred specimen (marked with type *): ZMB 2627 , skin and skull, male, adult; “Amboina” = Ambon, Moluccas, Indonesia; collected by Müller, in exchange from RMNH .

Comment: Peters (1867: 325) wrote about Pteropus phaeops Temminck: “Aus Macassar auf Celebes zufolge der späteren Angabe von Temminck, der ursprünglich Madagascar als Vaterland der beiden noch in Leiden [RMNH] befindlichen [Syntypus-]Exemplare angegeben hatte. Diese Art ist aber ganz verschieden von der später [im Part II: 75] unter diesem Namen [i.e. phaiops] beschriebenen Art.” Peters (1867a: 330) reports about Pteropus melanopogon : “Diese Art ist ganz verschieden von derjenigen, welche Temminck zuerst unter dem Namen Pt. phaeops beschrieben hat und welche dem Pt. Edwardsii und edulis viel näher steht.”

Andersen (1912: 207) analysed this discrepancy and established the following chronology of the use of this name: Temminck described Pt. phaiops [phaeops] based on two [syntype] specimens from Madagascar. A later series of specimens he received from Amboina was also assigned to Pt. phaiops. Since the localities lay far apart, it appears Temminck began to assume that “ Madagascar ” had been a spelling error for “Macassar” on Celebes , and intended to correct the type locality of the original two specimens. In fact the specimens from Amboina represented Pt. melanopogon , which Temminck had not recognized. Instead , Temminck sent one specimen of the Amboina series to the ZMB wrongly labelled as Pt. phaeops. The two originals (syntypes of Pt. phaiops [phaeops]) from Madagascar (junior synonym of Pt. rufus Tiedemann, 1908 ) remained in the RMNH. The specimen ZMB 2627 therefore is no type of Pt. phaiops .