Myzomela nigrita hades Meise

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 : 63

Myzomela nigrita hades Meise

Myzomela nigrita hades (ex. Stresemann MS) Meise, 1929b: 84 (St. Matthias).

Now Myzomela pammelaena hades Meise, 1929 . See Diamond, 1976: 4–6, Coates, 1990: 243–245, Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 398, and Higgins et al., 2008: 650–651.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 693218 , immature female, collected on Mussau (5 St. Matthias) Island, 01.30S, 149.40E ( PNG, 1984), St. Matthias Group , New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, on 20 June 1923, by Albert F. Eichhorn (no. 8571). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Meise cited Eichhorn’s unique number of the holotype and noted that he had examined eight specimens. The age and sex of specimens listed by Meise do not correspond to their appearance or agree with the data on the original labels. Hartert (1924c: 274) had first reported on Eichhorn’s collection, listing this form as Myzomela nigrita ramsayi and saying that Eichhorn had sent four adult males, one juvenile male (in molt), one adult female, and two juvenile females. This is in agreement with the specimens themselves, and accordingly, the seven paratypes, all collected by Eichhorn in 1923, are: AMNH 693211 (Eichhorn no. 8483), adult male, 31 May ; AMNH 693212 (8585), adult male, 23 June ; AMNH 693213 (8598), adult male, 26 June ; AMNH 693214 (8611), adult male, 29 June ; AMNH 693215 (8675), immature male, 24 July ; AMNH 693216 (8663), immature female, 18 July ; AMNH 693217 (8560), female, 16 June. Hartert (1924c: 274) had called attention to differences in this form but lacked comparative material .