Melithreptus atricapillus pallidiceps 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 : 111

Melithreptus atricapillus pallidiceps Mathews

Melithreptus atricapillus pallidiceps Mathews, 1912a: 394 (South Australia (90-Mile Desert)).

Now Melithreptus brevirostris pallidiceps Mathews, 1912 . See Salomonsen 1967: 395, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 279–281, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 673– 674.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 691651 , female, collected at Coonalpyn , 35.41S, 139.52E (Times Atlas), 90 Mile Desert, South Australia, Australia, on 17 May 1911, by J.B. Cleland (no. 4). From the Mathews Collection (no. 8949, not 8904, as in description) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his specimen no. 8904 as the type of pallidiceps; however, that number refers to a Norfolk Island specimen of Pachycephala pectoralis . The correct number ‘‘8949’’ is written on both the Mathews and the Rothschild type label. The original label is attached and Cleland (1912: 15) reported on the single specimen of M. brevirostris that he collected at Coonalpyn. Mathews (1924: 274) described, but did not figure, the type of pallidiceps, incorrectly listing the name as palliceps. The name is also incorrectly written on both type labels; the spelling in the original description is pallidiceps. The range of the form was given as ‘‘South Australia, Interior,’’ and the Coonalpyn specimen appears to be the only interior South Australian specimen Mathews had when pallidiceps was named.

Salomonsen (1967: 395) used augustus as the valid name of this form and considered pallidiceps a synonym, but see Schodde and Mason (1999: 280–281) for use of pallidiceps as the valid name.