Troglodytes troglodytes juniperi Hartert

LeCROY, M. A. R. Y., 2003, TYPE SPECIMENS OF BIRDS IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. PART 5. PASSERIFORMES: ALAUDIDAE, HIRUNDINIDAE, MOTACILLIDAE, CAMPEPHAGIDAE, PYCNONOTIDAE, IRENIDAE, LANIIDAE, VANGIDAE, BOMBYCILLIDAE, DULIDAE, CINCLIDAE, TROGLODYTIDAE, AND MIMIDAE, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 278 (278), pp. 1-156 : 118

Troglodytes troglodytes juniperi Hartert

Troglodytes troglodytes juniperi Hartert, 1922d: 140 (Merg, Cyrenaica) .

Now Troglodytes troglodytes juniperi Hartert, 1922 . See Keith et al., 1992: 383, and Brewer and MacKay, 2001: 166.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 573923 , adult male, collected near Al Marj (= Barce), 32°30′N, 20°50′E (Times Atlas), Libya, on 9 May 1922, by Ernst Hartert and Carl Hilgert. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Hartert (1922d: 140), in his original description, did not say how many specimens he had before him but gave the date of collection as 9 May 1922. Later, he ( Hartert, 1923b: 21) stated that he had had only two specimens and that the remainder of the collection arrived later. All of the nine specimens are males and there are two dated 9 May 1922. None of Hartert’s (1922d: 140, 1923b: 21, 1928: 223) publications on this form further restricts the type to a single specimen, and it is now impossible to know whether the two specimens he had in hand were the two with the same date. Because of this uncertainty and because the above specimen bears the Rothschild type label, was intended as the type by Hartert, and has been accepted as such, I hereby designate it the lectotype. Which of the specimens is the paralectotype is, for the same reasons, unknown.

Hartert (1923b: 4) described Merg as a town in the center of the ‘‘large plain of Merg, the Barce or Barka of the Greeks and Romans’’ and this species ‘‘singing in the juniper–trees’’ in ‘‘the woods of Juniperus , Arbutus , and Lentiscus on the Djebel Achdar, especially on the mountains south of Merg’’. The Times Atlas gives the modern spelling of this town as Al Marj.