Myzomela cineracea rooki Hartert, 1926

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 58

publication ID

0003-0090

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5475777

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03AC87E2-FF81-FFF7-FF63-FF533D5BFD05

treatment provided by

Tatiana

scientific name

Myzomela cineracea rooki Hartert
status

 

Myzomela cineracea rooki Hartert View in CoL

Myzomela cineracea rooki Hartert, 1926b: 142 View in CoL (Rook Island).

Now Myzomela cineracea Sclater, 1879 View in CoL . See Coates, 1990: 241–242, Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 397, Dickinson, 2003: 441, and Higgins et al., 2008: 638.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 692646 View Materials , adult male, collected on Umboi (5 Rook) Island, 05.40S, 148.00E ( PNG, 1984), Siassi Archipelago , Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea, on 24 July 1913, by Albert F. Eichhorn for Albert S. Meek (no. 5810). From the Rothschild Collection. GoogleMaps

COMMENTS: Hartert cited Meek’s unique field number of the holotype in the original description, but gave no number of specimens examined. This form was named in a report on a collection of birds made on the Talasea Peninsula of New Britain; in the original report on the birds collected on Umboi ( Rothschild and Hartert, 1914b: 217), a total of eight male and four female specimens was listed, including their Meek field numbers. Of these, four male and four female specimens came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection. I think that the description of rooki probably was based on the eight specimens now in AMNH. Rothschild frequently had first choice of specimens sent to him by collectors, from which he chose those he wanted and sent the rest to a dealer to sell for the collector (M. Rothschild, 1983: 158). In this case, he would have sent the other specimens to a dealer long before the 1926 paper was published. Paratypes, all collected in July 1913, are: males, AMNH 692645 (Meek no. 5784), AMNH 692647 (5863), AMNH 692648 (5880); females, AMNH 692649 (5811), AMNH 692650 (5719), AMNH 692651 (5718), AMNH 692652 (5876).

Mayr and Diamond (2001: 397) and Higgins et al. (2008: 638) did not recognize rooki, but Dickinson (2003: 441) did. The differences in wing measurements used to separate Umboi birds from those from Talasea, New Britain, with which they were compared, were slight. My measurements of the four male and four female Umboi birds and ten male and nine female specimens from various parts of New Britain show almost complete overlap: males, Umboi, 76–78 mm, New Britain, 74–77; females, Umboi, 63– 64.5, New Britain, 61–66. Hartert also mentioned the weaker bill in the Umboi birds. My measurements of bill length (from base) of the same specimens also show overlap: males, Umboi, 25.0–25.5, New Britain, 26.0–28.5; females, Umboi, 23.5– 25.0, New Britain, 24.0–26.0. There appears to be considerable individual variation in the thickness of the bill and too much overlap in size for recognition of rooki.

Rothschild and Hartert (1914b: 207) pointed out that the island was named for Sir George Rook and the spelling ‘‘Rooke’’ that is sometimes seen, is incorrect.

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Meliphagidae

Genus

Myzomela

Loc

Myzomela cineracea rooki Hartert

Mary 2011
2011
Loc

Myzomela cineracea

Higgins, P. J. & L. Christidis & H. A. Ford 2008: 638
Dickinson, E. C. 2003: 441
Mayr, E. & J. M. Diamond 2001: 397
Coates, B. J. 1990: 241
1990
Loc

Myzomela cineracea rooki

Hartert, E. 1926: 142
1926
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