Dorothina virescens everardi 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 : 83

Dorothina virescens everardi Mathews

Dorothina virescens everardi Mathews, 1916b: 91 (Everard Ranges, Central Australia).

Now Lichenostomus virescens forresti ( Ingram, 1906) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 375, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 234–235, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 598.

SYNTYPE: AMNH 694837, female, collected at Carmeena (5 Carminia, as on label), 27.08S, 132.27E (USBGN, 1957), Everard Range, South Australia, Australia, on 11 August 1914, by S.A. White (no. 1640). From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews gave 11 August 1914 as the date on which the type was collected. AMNH 694837 is the only Mathews specimen of virescens from the Everard Range collected on that date that is now in AMNH, and White’s original label on it is marked ‘‘ everardi TYPE’’ by Mathews. The specimen also bears a Rothschild Museum label printed ‘‘Ex. coll. G.M. Mathews’’ and a Rothschild type label. No mention was made by Mathews in the original description of the range of the form, only the type locality and date being listed, and no further information is given by Mathews (1924: 458–469) concerning the type of everardi. Mathews was no longer making entries in his catalog when this specimen was collected. A second syntype is present in SAMA, B53643, an adult female, collected in the Everard Range, South Australia, on 11 August 1914, by S.A. White. ‘‘Co-type’’ is written on the reverse of the specimen label (B. Blaylock, personal commun.).

Because syntypes for D. v. everardi were nominated by Mathews in the original description by listing the collecting date, other specimens collected on this expedition on other dates in July and August have no standing as types (ICZN, 1999: 77, 81, Arts. 72.4.6, 73.2.1). If other S.A. White specimens from the Everard Range collected on 11 August 1914 are found, they are also syntypes. For a report on this expedition, see White (1915 a, 1915b, 1915c).

In his description of this form, Mathews refers to his List of the birds of Australia ( Mathews, 1913a: 274) where D. v. everardi is to be added under Meliphaga virescens . When one consults that work, only Meliphaga sonora is listed. Tracing Mathews’ nomenclatural statements concerning the species virescens , one finds that he ( Mathews, 1914b: 101) noted that he had listed M. virescens in Appendix B of his 1913 List ( Mathews, 1913a: 329) and that he now thought that all of the forms that he ( Mathews, 1913a: 274) had referred to as Meliphaga sonora should now be referred to as M. virescens . Later, Mathews (1916a: 67, published 7 April 1916) introduced the generic name Dorothina to replace ‘‘ Meliphaga Lewin, 1808 , not Melophagus Latreille, 1802 ,’’ on the misapprehension that the two latter names were homonyms. The result is that when Mathews (1916b: 91, published 7 July 1916) introduced D. v. everardi it was to be included in what he (1913a: 274) had called Meliphaga sonora .