Myzomela cruentata lavongai Salomonsen, 1966

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 : 61

Myzomela cruentata lavongai Salomonsen

Myzomela cruentata lavongai Salomonsen, 1966b: 122 (New Hanover (5 Lavongai)).

Now Myzomela cruentata lavongai Salomonsen, 1966 . See Hartert, 1924b: 210, Mayr, 1955: 43, Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 397, and Higgins et al., 2008: 639.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 693102 , female [Salomonsen considered this a juvenile], collected on New Hanover Island , 02.35S, 150.10E (PNG, 1984), New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, on 6 February 1923, by Albert F. Eichhorn (no. 8119). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Salomonsen cited the AMNH number of the holotype in the original description and noted that he had five adult males, one juvenile male, and two juvenile females (one of them his type). He based his identification of the females as juveniles on his belief that the adult females of his erythrina group (subspecies erythrina from New Ireland, lavongai from New Hanover, cantans from Tabar, and vinacea from Dyaul) were similar to adult males but duller ( Salomonsen, 1966b: 120). This is based on two birds sexed as females by Salomonsen but similar to males in plumage, one from New Ireland and one from Dyaul Island ( Salomonsen, 1966b: 121, 122). I think that this needs to be reexamined with fresh material, as does the validity of lavongai. The specimens in Salomonsen’s type series of lavongai are the same New Hanover specimens that were part of Mayr’s type series of cantans (see below). I list Salomonsen’s paratypes as they were sexed by Eichhorn: AMNH 693095–693098, males; AMNH 693099, immature male; AMNH 693100, female [Salomonsen considered this a juvenile]; AMNH 693101, male; AMNH 693103, 693104, unsexed. The unsexed birds were not mentioned by Salomonsen, but were available to him.

Hartert (1924b) does not say exactly where on New Hanover Eichhorn collected. Lavongai was a plantation on New Hanover but I find no evidence that it was ever used as a name for the entire island.