Philemon meyeri Salvadori, 1878

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 : 120-121

Philemon meyeri Salvadori

Philemon meyeri Salvadori, 1878: 339 (Rubi) .

Now Philemon meyeri Salvadori, 1878 . See A.B. Meyer, 1875b: 212, Salvadori, 1878: 339, Salomonsen, 1967: 404, and Higgins et al., 2008: 685.

SYNTYPE: AMNH 294789, adult female, collected at Rubi, ca. 03.20S, 134.57E, Papua Province, Indonesia, in May 1873, by A.B. Meyer (no. 9066).

COMMENTS: When Meyer (1875b: 212– 215) reported on the 12 specimens of this species that he collected at Rubi, he doubtfully identified them as Tropidorhynchus inornatus G.R. Gray and Mitchell, 1846 , referring to both the page number and the plate number (Mitchell was the illustrator for Gray’s list of genera; also see Meyer, 1875a: 147). He did not introduce a new name. Later, Salvadori (1878: 339), deciding that Meyer’s specimens were different from Tropidorhynchus inornatus G.R. Gray , named them Philemon meyeri and, in addition, included in his type series a female specimen collected by Bruijn and Laglaize at Mambriok that had been deposited in the Turin Museum. Salvadori did not designate a type, so all 13 specimens are syntypes of Philemon meyeri . The name Philemon meyeri Salvadori, 1878 , was not a replacement name contra Salomonsen (1967: 404), Eck and Quaisser (2004: 270), and others.

Meyer’s original specimens went to SMTD, from which institution the above specimen was exchanged to AMNH in 1924. In addition to the number ‘‘9066’’ on Meyer’s printed label, the number ‘‘9287’’ is written in pencil, and on the reverse of Meyer’s field label the number ‘‘387’’ appears; the significance of these numbers is unknown to me. The AMNH syntype had not previously been included with AMNH types. Seven syntypes still remain in SMTD ( Eck and Quaisser, 2004: 270), but these are syntypes of Philemon meyeri Salvadori, 1878 .