Conopophila albogularis 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 : 151

Conopophila albogularis melvillensis Mathews

Conopophila albogularis melvillensis Mathews, 1924: 389 (Cooper’s Camp, Apsley Straits, Melville Island, Northern Territory).

Now Conopophila albogularis (Gould, 1843) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 434, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 321–322, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185– 191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 628.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 692381 , adult male, collected at Coopers Camp , Apsley Strait, Mellville Island, Northern Territory, Australia, on 2 October 1911, by J.P. Rogers (no. 2091). From the Mathews Collection (no. 10687) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews named this subspecies in his description of the adult male figured in Mathews (1924: pl. 523, bottom fig., opp. p. 388, text p. 389). It is the only Mathews specimen from Melville Island collected on 2 October 1911, and it bears Mathews’ ‘‘Figured’’ label, Rogers’ original label, and a Rothschild Collection label printed ‘‘Ex. coll. G.M. Mathews.’’ It had not previously been recognized as a type.

Mathews (1924: 389) did not give a range for melvillensis, but he discussed all of Rogers’ Melville Island specimens of this form together and one may assume that he included all of the island in the range. The following Melville Island specimens are considered paratypes: Coopers Camp, AMNH 692380 , 4 October 1911, male, AMNH 692382 , 692383 , 24 October–1 November 1911, females ; 10 miles southeast of Snake Bay , AMNH 692384–692391 , 29 December 1911 – 5 January 1912, males, AMNH 692392–692394 , 3–5 January 1912, females, AMNH 692395 , 29 December 1911, sex ?.

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