Xanthotis chrysotis mayeri Rothschild

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 : 103

Xanthotis chrysotis mayeri Rothschild

Xanthotis chrysotis mayeri Rothschild, 1931: 258 (Gebroeders, 5,000 ft.).

Now Xanthotis flaviventer subspecies? See Schodde and Mason, 1999: 227–228.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 303031 , adult male, collected in the Gebroeders Range, 5000 ft, 03.39S, 135.56E ( USBGN, 1982a), Kobowre (5 Weyland) Mountains , Papua Province,

Indonesia, on 8 August 1930, by Fred Shaw Mayer (no. 285).

COMMENTS: In the original description, Rothschild designated as type the unique specimen bearing the above data. A second specimen, also collected by Shaw Mayer, is a paratype: AMNH 303030, adult male, collected on Mount Derimapa, 5000 ft, Gebroeders Mountains, on 29 June 1930.

The Weyland Mountain population, named mayeri by Rothschild, was considered synonymous with rubiensis from the head of Geelvink Bay by Mayr (1941: 201). More recently, Diamond (1972: 374–375) identified his specimens from the Karimui and Okasa areas with rubiensis, ‘‘the Weyland Mountains race.’’ There are no topotypical rubiensis specimens in AMNH with which Diamond could compare them; the original type series of rubiensis is housed in SMTD and five of the original eight specimens were lost during WWII ( Eck and Quaisser, 2004: 269). Schodde and Mason (1999: 228), in a study of southern New Guinea subspecies of X. flaviventer , considered rubiensis an intergradient population between X. f. flaviventer from the Vogelkop and X. f. saturatior from southern New Guinea, but they did not specifically address the Weyland population, the number of specimens of which had been considerably enlarged by the Steins’ 1931 collection from the Gebroeders ( Hartert et al., 1936). The subspecific status of the Weyland population remains uncertain until a revision is published including all New Guinea populations. It may, in fact, prove intergradient not only between flaviventer from the Vogelkop and saturatior from south New Guinea, but may also exhibit gene flow from meyeri from north New Guinea (R. Schodde, personal commun.).

Shaw Mayer’s collecting in the Gebroeders was jointly sponsored by L.C. Sanford for AMNH and Rothschild. Since 1932, when the Rothschild Collection came to AMNH, the entire Shaw Mayer collection has been in AMNH. The Gebroeders comprise a group of mountains to the north of the main Weyland Range.

The specific name chrysotis in the binomen Certhia chrysotis Latham, 1801 , was regarded as indeterminable ( Vaurie, 1964: 240), was supressed under the plenary powers of the ICZN (1966: 225–226), and was placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Specific Names in Zoology with the Name Number 877. The supression was ‘‘for the purposes of the Law of Priority but not for those of the Law of Homonymy.’’ This name had blocked the use of two names that were homonyms of it, Meliphaga chrysotis Lewin, 1808 , and Philedon chrysotis Lesson and Garnot, 1828 (March) , and following the action by the ICZN, both needed replacement names. In the case of Philedon chrysotis, Lesson himself had proposed the replacement name, Myzantha flaviventer Lesson, 1828 (June) . Salomonsen (1967: 386), under the heading Meliphaga flaviventer flaviventer , had listed the author of flaviventer as Lesson and Garnot, but this is incorrect.