Manucodia ater altera Rothschild and Hartert

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 : 92

Manucodia ater altera Rothschild and Hartert

Manucodia ater altera Rothschild and Hartert, 1903a: 84 (Sudest Island, Louisiade Islands).

Now Manucodia ater alter Rothschild and Hartert, 1903 . See Hartert, 1919: 128; Mayr, 1962d: 185; Gilliard, 1969: 95–100; Coates, 1990: 430–431; Cracraft, 1992: 8–9; Frith and Beehler, 1998: 211–217; and Frith and Frith, 2009b: 462–463.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 677282 , adult male, collected on Sudest Island , 11.30S, 153.40E (PNG General Reference Map, 1984), Louisiade Islands, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea, on 16 April 1898, by Albert S. Meek (no. 1735). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Rothschild and Hartert designated Meek’s specimen no. 1735 as the holotype of altera and divided the specimens they included in the new form into two geographic groups: group A from eastern New Guinea and the eastern Papuan islands and group B from the Aru Islands . However, at that time they saw no differences between the two groups and included in it all the listed specimens in their new altera. Later, they named subalter (see below) and included all the specimens listed for altera except those from Sudest Island (sometimes also referred to as Tagula Island). All the specimens listed here are paratypes of altera ; those listed below in shortened form are also the lectotype and paralectotypes of subalter. Trangan Island , Aru Islands, AMNH 677262 , 677263 , males, AMNH 677264 , female, September 1900, collected by H. Kühn (nos 2456, 2451, 2453, respectively) ; Sungai Wanoembai , Kobror Island, Aru Islands, AMNH 677265 , female, September 1900, collected by Kühn (no. 2452) ; Dobo , Aru Islands, AMNH 677266 , 677267 , two males, 31 November 1897, collected by Kühn (nos. 414, 415), AMNH 677268 , male, 677269, female, February 1897, collected by W. Doherty, AMNH 677270–677273 , unsexed, May-June 1896, collected by H. Cayley-Webster ; Wokam Island , Aru Islands, AMNH 677274 , female, October 1900, collected by Kühn (no. 2455) ; Yule Island , AMNH 677275 , 677276 , one male, one female, October 1875 (nos. 670, 671), collected by L.M. D’Albertis ; Mailu District , AMNH 677277 , sex?, July-August 1895, collected by A.S. Anthony ; Mount Victoria , Owen Stanley Mountains, AMNH 677279 , unsexed, autumn 1896, collector unknown, ‘‘purchased in London’ ’; Sudest Island , Louisiade Archipelago, AMNH 677284 , 677285 , males, 677289–677291, females, April 1898, collected by A.S. Meek (nos. 1761, 1729, 1766, 1736, 1724, respectively). Of these, AMNH 677272 was exchanged to FMNH in the 1960s .

Manucodia has been considered both masculine and feminine, but the ICZN ruled that the gender is to be masculine (see Melville and Smith, 1987: 123). Most authors have recognized subalter and accept- ed three subspecies in Manucodia ater , but Cracraft considered the species monotypic.