Tephras ruki Hartert

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 : 33-34

Tephras ruki Hartert

Tephras ruki Hartert, 1897e : v (Ruk, in the Caroline group).

Now Rukia ruki (Hartert, 1897) . See Mees, 1969: 229–231, and van Balen, 2008: 479.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 701365 , adult male, collected on Chuuk (5 Truk 5 Ruk ) Island, 07.28N, 151.51E ( Times Atlas ), Chuuk Islands , Caroline Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, on 23 November 1895, by collectors for Alan Owston (no. B 15). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: No type was designated in the original description, nor did Hartert say how many specimens he examined. Later, in reporting on the entire collection from Chuuk, he ( Hartert, 1900a: 3) noted that eight specimens were obtained in November and December, but still did not mention a type. Hartert (1920: 438) listed a male specimen collected on 25 November 1895 as the type, also giving the Owston number ‘‘B 15.’’ None of the eight specimens in the type series was collected on 25 November and each bears the number ‘‘B 15.’’ The two male specimens collected in November are dated 23 and 28 November. The specimen that is now AMNH 701365 has the Owston label marked by Hartert ‘‘ Tephras rucki Hartert. Type’’ and bears a Rothschild type label. In order to remove the confusion caused by Hartert’s evident misprint ( Hartert, 1920: 438) and to confirm his intended specimen as type, I hereby designate AMNH 701365 the lectotype of Tephras ruki .

Of the seven paralectotypes, there are only six in AMNH. One, listed by Mees (1969: 230) as BMNH, No. 98.4.29.15, was exchanged by Rothschild to BMNH in 1898, and was collected on Chuuk by Owston’s collectors (no. B 15) on 16 December 1895 (Mark Adams, personal commun.). Paralectotypes in AMNH, all collected in 1895, are:

males, AMNH 701366, 28 November, AMNH 701367, 16 December, AMNH 701368, 21 December; sex?, AMNH 701369, 25 December; females, AMNH 701370, 16 December, AMNH 701371, 28 November.