Zosterops aignani Hartert

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 : 21-22

Zosterops aignani Hartert

Zosterops aignani Hartert, 1899b: 210 (St. Aignan Island, in the Louisiade Archipelago).

Now Zosterops griseotinctus griseotinctus Hartert, 1899 . See Mees, 1961a: 131–137, Coates, 1990: 333, Dickinson, 2003: 628, and van Balen, 2008: 262–263.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 700680 , adult male, collected on Kimuta Island , 10.50S, 152.55E (PNG, 1984), (not St. Aignan 5 Misima), Louisiade Archipelago, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea, on 7 December 1897, by Albert S. Meek (no. 1132). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Hartert did not designate a type. Later, Rothschild and Hartert (1903c: 453) listed Meek’s specimen no. 1132 as the type, thereby designating it the lectotype. LeCroy and Peckover (1998: 227–228) gave reasons why Hartert probably only studied specimens in this collection purchased by Rothschild and not others turned over to a dealer for sale; paralectotypes in AMNH, all collected in 1897, are: AMNH 700681 (Meek no. 1057), male, 30 November; AMNH 700682 (969), male, 5 September; AMNH 700683 (968), male, 5 September; AMNH 700684 (973), female, 5 September; AMNH 700685 (971), female, 5 September; AMNH 700686 (923), female, 31 July; AMNH 700687 (1197), female, 17 December. Of these, AMNH 700683 and 700685 were exchanged to FMNH in the early 1960s.

LeCroy and Peckover (1998: 232) found that the type specimen of Zosterops aignani , labeled as having come from Misima (5 St. Aignan), was actually collected on the small island of Kimuta, offshore from Misima, that Meek’s 5 September specimens could have been collected either on Misima or Kimuta, that his 31 July specimen was probably collected on a small island on his way to Misima, and that his 17 December specimen was from Kimuta. We did not see it on Misima nor has it been reported there by others. Mees (1961a: 135–137) and Mayr (1967: 311) considered aignani a synonym of Z. g. griseotinctus , but Coates (1990: 333) and Dickinson (2003: 628) recognized it. More recently, van Balen (2008: 462) again synonymized it with nominate griseotinctus . Z. griseotinctus is a small island specialist; the source of these island populations and the subspecies limits among them need to be reexamined.

Benson (1999: 139) did not accept Hartert’s (1920: 436) listing of the type as a lectotypification and cited a ‘‘syntype’’ in UMZC; however, Rothschild and Hartert (1903c: 453) had also earlier designated this same specimen as the lectotype. Hartert’s (1918: 4, 1919a: 123) purpose in publishing on the Rothschild types was to ‘‘fix’’ the type specimen, when that specimen was in the Rothschild Collection. Warren and Harrison (1971: 9) accepted this designation and did not list ‘‘St. Aignan’’ specimens in BMNH. The ‘‘paralectotype’’ that Benson cited was collected on 17 December on Kimuta Island; it probably was not in Hartert’s hand when this subspecies was named.