Ptilotis flavescens melvillensis 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 : 88

Ptilotis flavescens melvillensis Mathews

Ptilotis flavescens melvillensis Mathews, 1912b: 50 (Melville Island, Northern Territory).

Now Lichenostomus flavescens melvillensis (Mathews, 1912) . See Schodde and Mason, 1999: 253– 254, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 608.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 695503 , adult male, collected at Coopers Camp , Apsley Strait, Melville Island, Northern Territory, Australia, on 24 October 1911, by J.P. Rogers (no. 2263). From the Mathews Collection (no. 10653) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description and ( Mathews, 1912b: 26) noted that he had received two shipments of specimens from Melville Island. These include the specimens collected at Coopers Camp in September through December 1911. The holotype bears, besides Rogers’ original label, Mathews and Rothschild type labels and a ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was illustrated in Mathews (1924: pl. 539, bottom fig., opp. p. 537, text p. 545), where it is confirmed as the type of melvillensis. The paratypes, all collected in 1911, are: males, AMNH 695501 (Mathews no. 10658), 30 September; AMNH 695502 (10657), 30 September; AMNH 695504 (10655), 1 November; AMNH 695505 (11620), 22 November; AMNH 695506 (11619), 8 December; AMNH 695507 (11617), 9 December; females, AMNH 695511 (11618), 5 December; AMNH 695512 (11621), 22 November; AMNH 695513 (10656), 18 October. The specimen that Mathews cataloged as no. 10654, male, collected on 1 November 1911, did not come to AMNH and if found is also a paratype.

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