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
Author
Lecroy, Mary
Department of Vertebrate Zoology (Ornithology) American Museum of Natural History
text
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
2014
2014-12-30
2014
393
1
165
journal article
7639
10.1206/885.1
48769858-fe3b-415b-9ac8-3feeb42a9bae
0003-0090
4629954
Passer griseus abyssinicus
Neumann
Passer griseus abyssinicus
Neumann, 1908b: 70
(Ghadi-Saati, Mareb River, Erythrea)
.
Now
Passer swainsonii
(Rüppell, 1840)
. See
Hartert, 1928: 198
;
Dickinson, 2003: 717
;
Fry
and Keith, 2004: 4–5;
Ash and Atkins, 2009: 332
; and
Summers-Smith, 2009: 803
.
HOLOTYPE
:
AMNH 719865
, adult male, collected at
Ghadi-Saati
,
4675 ft
,
Mareb River
,
15.10N
,
38.50E
(
Ash and Atkins, 2009
),
Eritrea
, on
10 February 1903
, by
G. Schrader. From
the
Rothschild Collection.
COMMENTS: In the original description,
Neumann
designated as type the only specimen in the
Rothschild Collection
collected by
Schrader
on
10 February 1903
.
He
gave the range as ‘‘
Abyssinia
and the
Galla
country southwards to
Lake Rudolf
,’’ but it is unclear which specimens he included in
abyssinicus
as he did not mark specimens with that name. I have considered
paratypes
of
abyssinicus
to be only the specimens additional to the
holotype
collected by
Schrader
at
Ghadi-Saati
in 1903.
Paratypes
:
AMNH 719866
, male, 4 February;
AMNH 719867
, female, 1 February
;
AMNH 719868
, male, 8 February
.
While Neumann in his original description had labeled
abyssinicus
a
nomen novum
, he did not consider it a replacement name. Having compared his specimens with specimens of Rüppell’s
Passer swainsonii
, he considered his gray-throated bird from the Abyssinian highlands different and in need of a name.
Moreau and Greenway (1962: 17)
considered
abyssinicus
a synonym of
swainsonii
.
Among recent authors
Dickinson (2003: 717)
and
Ash and Atkins (2009: 332)
have retained
swainsonii
as a subspecies of
Passer griseus
, and
Fry and Keith (2004: 4–5)
and
Summers-Smith (2009: 803)
have considered it a full species.