Meliphaga montana sepik Rand, 1936

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 : 73

Meliphaga montana sepik Rand

Meliphaga montana sepik Rand, 1936: 7 (Hunsteinspitze, Sepik District, New Guinea).

Now Meliphaga montana sepik Rand, 1936 . See Diamond, 1972: 367–370, Dickinson, 2003: 433, and Higgins et al., 2008: 593.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 448977 , adult male, collected on Hunstein Peak (5 Huntsteinspitze), 04.30S, 142.40E ( USBGN, 1943), Hunstein Mountains , East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, on 2 March 1913, by Joseph Bürgers (no. 1364). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Rand gave the AMNH number of the holotype in the original description and noted that he based his description on eight males and three females from Hunstein Peak. The holotype came to AMNH via the Rothschild Collection but was cataloged separately as Rand named this form before the Rothschild specimens of Meliphagidae were cataloged. However, no other Hunstein Peak specimens of this form came to AMNH. Perhaps Rand borrowed specimens from ZMB, where the bulk of the Bürgers Collection is housed. Stresemann (1923: 58) reported that one specimen of Meliphaga montana was collected at Maeanderberg and 22 specimens on Hunstein Peak. The holotype of sepik is also a paratype of germanorum, see below.