Spinus alleni Ridgway

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 : 67

Spinus alleni Ridgway

Spinus alleni Ridgway, 1899: 37 (Chapada, Matto Grosso, Brazil).

Now Carduelis magellanica alleni ( Ridgway, 1899) . See Hellmayr, 1938: 282–283; Todd, 1926: 52– 54; Howell et al., 1968: 242; Dickinson, 2003: 750; and Clement, 2010: 553.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 32618 , adult male, collected at Chapada dos Guimarães (5 Chapada), 15.26S, 55.45W ( Paynter and Traylor, 1991), Mato Grosso, Brazil, on 21 May 1883, by H.H. Smith.

COMMENTS: When Allen (1891: 375) published on the Herbert H. Smith collection from Chapada, Mato Grosso, he identified his siskins as Spinus yarrelli (Audubon) and noted that he had two males, two young males and a female. Ridgway (1899: 37) found that this was not the correct identification and named the Chapada birds Spinus alleni with the type specimen listed as AMNH 32618, data cited as above. Hellmayr (1938: 282–283) accepted this name, included it as a subspecies of his Spinus magellanicus and gave an expanded range for the form, as did Todd (1926: 53). Both authors ( Hellmayr, 1938: 273, Todd, 1926: 30–32) considered Spinus yarrellii a separate species with a range in eastern Brazil and northern Venezuela. This was also followed by Howell et al. (1968: 240, 242), both forms by then included in the genus Carduelis . Dickinson (2003: 750) and Clement (2010: 553) did not include Mato Grosso in the range of alleni , probably an inadvertant omission, as the type locality is Chapada.

Ridgway, by mentioning Allen’s (1891) paper, made bibliographic reference to all of the specimens Allen had and the other four specimens are paratypes of Ridgway’s name (ICZN, 1999: 76, Art. 72.4.1): Chapada, AMNH 31524, 32619–32621, one adult male, two young males, one female, colleted at Chapada dos Guinarães, in May and June 1883 (one dated June 1885), by H.H. Smith.