Zosterops smithi Neumann

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 : 41

Zosterops smithi Neumann

Zosterops smithi Neumann, 1902b: 139 (Sillul, Bodele, Somali Land).

Now Zosterops abyssinicus jubaensis Erlanger, 1901 . See Moreau, 1967: 327, Fry et al., 2000: 324–315, and van Balen, 2008: 469–470.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 699310 , adult male, collected at Wadi Sillul (5 Selou, as on label), Bodele, Ethiopia, on 7 August 1894, by A. Donaldson Smith (no. 140). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Neumann designated as syntypes a male and a female in the Rothschild Collection, collected at [Wadi] Sillul by Donaldson Smith. Hartert (1920: 432) listed the male as the type, thereby designating it the lectotype. The paralectotype is AMNH 699311, female, collected at Wadi Sillul on 7 August 1894 by Donaldson Smith (no. 141). Neumann (1902b: 139) listed two additional specimens in BMNH, but because he designated syntypes in the original description, those specimens have no nomenclatural standing (ICZN, 1999: 77, Art. 72.4.6).

Sharpe (1895) reported on this, the first Donaldson Smith expedition to the area, and later noted ( Sharpe, 1906: 277) that the 23 types of new forms that he had named had been presented to BMNH by Donaldson Smith. Apparently, those were the only specimens from this first expedition that went to BMNH. Sharpe (1895: 475–476), in his report on the collection, listed as Zosterops flavilateralis a male specimen bearing the same data as the lectotype of Z. smithi and in addition recorded the iris as ‘‘light brown’’ and feet as ‘‘dark grey,’’ both noted on the original label of the lectotype. I believe it was indeed this specimen but that it did not remain in BMNH; the female was not listed.

The date of collection of the lectotype appears to be 1 August; however, careful examination with a magnifying glass shows that part of the ‘‘7’’ was overwritten by Neumann with his new name, and the lectotype was collected on the same date as the paralectotype. A search of Sharpe (1895) for collecting dates provided 5–7 August for Wadi Sillul and 7–9 August for Selou (probably an alternative spelling). This agrees with map sheet 1 in Donaldson Smith (1896) where the Wadi Sillul crosses the expedition route at ca. 08.10N, 43.17E.