Melithreptus lunatus gradus Mathews

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 : 113

Melithreptus lunatus gradus Mathews

Melithreptus lunatus gradus Mathews, 1912b: 48 (Melville Island, Northern Territory).

Now Melithreptus albogularis albogularis Gould, 1848 . See Salomonsen, 1967: 396, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 282–283, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 674– 675.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 691332 , adult male, collected at Coopers Camp , Apsley Strait, Melville Island, Northern Territory, Australia, on 24 November 1911, by J.P. Rogers (no. 2512). From the Mathews Collection (no. 11336) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews said that his type was from Melville Island, which was also given as the range of the form. AMNH 691332 bears, in addition to Rogers’ original label, Mathews and Rothschild type labels and a Mathews ‘‘Figured’’ label indicating that it was the model for Mathews (1924: pl. 511, lower figure, opp. p. 241, text p. 243), where the figured male is said to be the type of gradus, thereby designating it the lectotype. While Mathews’ catalog number is written on the type labels, it was not mentioned in the description. Mathews (1912b: 26) noted that he had received two shipments of birds collected on Melville Island prior to his description of this form. This included all of the specimens collected at Coopers Camp in 1911.There are six paralectotypes in AMNH: AMNH 691331 (Mathews no. 11337), male, 24 November; AMNH 691334 (10690), female, 3 October; AMNH 691335 (11615), female, 7 November; AMNH 691337 (11616), female, 7 November; AMNH 691338 (10689), female, 2 October; AMNH 691339 (10688), sex?, 13 October. A seventh paralectotype was cataloged by Mathews as no. 11338, male, collected 24 November 1911, but it did not come to AMNH.

Coopers Camp, according to Hart and Pilling (1964: 101), was across Apsley Strait from the Bathurst Island Mission Station, 11.45S, 130.41E (Times Atlas).