Monticola bensoni Farkas, 1971

Mary, Croy, History, Bulletin Of The American Museum Of Natural, At, Central Park West, Street, Th, York, New & Ny, 2005, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 6. Passeriformes: Prunellidae, Turdidae, Orthonychidae, Timaliidae, Paradoxornithidae, Picathartidae, And Polioptilidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2005 (292), pp. 1-132 : 28

Monticola bensoni Farkas

Monticola bensoni Farkas, 1971: 85 (Ankarefu, Antinosy Cy., S. W. Madagascar).

Now Monticola bensoni Farkas, 1971 . See Goodman and Weigt, 2002.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 580865 , adult male, collected at Ankarefo, Antinosy Cy., Madagascar, by Joseph Thomas Last. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Farkas cited the AMNH numbers of the holotype and the paratype, AMNH 580866, an adult female collected by Last at the same locality. Only these two specimens came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection.

The collector’s name as written on the Rothschild label appears to be ‘‘Zaast’’ and was so published by Farkas. In a fascinating piece of ornithological detective work, Collar and Tattersall (1987) and Collar (1999) have uncovered details of Last’s travels and the collecting date and locality coordinates of the two specimens listed above. They showed that Ankarefo (modern spelling) was at about 238219S, 448489E and that the type material was collected in either 1891 or 1892. They also listed a bibliography of five articles written by Last about his travels and collections in Madagascar. Rothschild apparently bought specimens, either from Last directly or through a dealer. The name on the Rothschild label must have been misinterpreted from a list accompanying the specimens.

See Goodman and Weigt (2002) for the results of their molecular studies and a summary of previous taxonomic treatments. Dickinson (2003: 688) treated bensoni as a subspecies of Pseudocossyphus sharpei and placed it in the subfamily Saxicolinae , family Muscicapidae .