Munia grandis destructa Hartert

LeCroy, Mary, 2013, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 11. Passeriformes: Parulidae, Drepanididae, Vireonidae, Icteridae, Fringillinae, Carduelinae, Estrildidae, And Viduinae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2013 (381), pp. 1-155 : 120-121

Munia grandis destructa Hartert

Munia grandis destructa Hartert, 1930b: 42 (Ifaar) .

Now Lonchura grandis destructa (Hartert, 1930) . See Mayr et al., 1968: 382; Dickinson, 2003: 736; and Payne, 2010: 377.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 294407, adult female, AMNH 721305, male, collected at Ifaar, 02.34S, 140.31E (USBGN, 1982), Sentani Lake, Papua Province, Indonesia, on 22 September 1928, by Ernst Mayr (nos. 2509 and 2508, respectively). The male from the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: A male and a female specimen were collected. In the original description, Hartert designated the female as the type, but gave Mayr’s field number of the male. This expedition by Mayr was sponsored jointly by Rothschild and by L.C. Sanford for AMNH. The specimens were divided between the two collections, with half of the types to go to each institution, and a representative set was sent to MZB (see Hartert, 1930a: 18–19). The specimen that first came to AMNH, AMNH 294407, was stamped with an S within a circle, representing Sanford’s share. It bears an AMNH type label and Mayr’s field label is marked ‘‘Type of M.g. destructa ’’ in what appears to be Mayr’s hand. The second specimen, AMNH 721305, was in Rothschild’s share, which came to AMNH in 1932 with the purchase of that collection. It bears a Rothschild type label filled in by Hartert and with Mayr’s label marked ‘‘ Munia grandis destructa Hart. ’’ and ‘‘TYPE!!’’ by Hartert. In light of the above, it seems best to consider the two specimens syntypes of M. g. destructa.

Mayr (1930: 20–26) wrote an account of his 1928 expedition.