Lophorina superba niedda Mayr, 1930

Lecroy, Mary, 2014, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2014 (393), pp. 1-165 : 103

Lophorina superba niedda Mayr

Lophorina superba niedda Mayr, 1930c: 179 (Wondiwoigebirge (Wandammen)).

Now Lophorina superba niedda Mayr, 1930 . See Hartert, 1930: 31–32; Mayr, 1962d: 193; Gilliard, 1969: 163–170; Cracraft, 1992: 24; Frith and Beehler, 1998: 345–356; and Frith and Frith, 2009b: 476–477.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 678265 , female, collected in the Wondiwoi Mountains , 02.45S, 134.35E ( USBGN, 1982), on the Wandammen Peninsula, Papua Province, Indonesia, on 9 July 1928, by Ernst Mayr (no. 1418).

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mayr gave his unique field number of the holotype and noted that he had collected three males and two females. The following paratypes are in AMNH: Wondiwoi Mountains, AMNH 678262 (Mayr’s no. 1556), male, 16 July 1928 ; AMNH 678263 (1392), male, 8 July 1928 ; AMNH 678264 (1494), female, 13 July 1928. Mayr (1930c: 179) noted that niedda was the name the local hunters gave this species, based on its call. On most New Guinea maps, the peninsula that juts out into Teluk Cenderwasih (= Geelvink Bay ), east of Wandammen Bay, is unnamed ; but it is called the Wandammen Peninsula in ornithological literature .

Mayr’s fieldwork in what was at that time Dutch New Guinea was jointly sponsored by Rothschild and by L.C. Sanford for AMNH. When Mayr’s collection was reported on by Hartert (1930: 31–32), he identified the Wondiwoi specimens with Arfak L. superba superba , and indeed Mayr found that the adult males did not differ. The collection was divided between the two collections prior to the purchase of the Rothschild Collection by AMNH. Among the specimens sent to Sanford was AMNH 294590, adult male, without the original label but with a note indicating it had been collected by Mayr in 1928. It is quite possible that this specimen is the missing paratype.

Frith and Beehler (1998: 348) erroneously listed the type of niedda as in ZMB, but Mayr’s Dutch New Guinea collection is now, since the purchase of the Rothschild Collection, in AMNH. Steinheimer (2005: 15) called attention to the error in type citation and noted the AMNH number of the holotype. Mayr (1930a: 24) gave a brief account of the great difficulties he encountered during his stay on the Wandammen Peninsula.