Emberiza rufigularis C. L. Brehm

Mlíkovský, Jiří & Frahnert, Sylke, 2011, Type specimens and type localities of birds collected during the Hemprich and Ehrenberg expedition to Lebanon in 1824, Zootaxa 2990, pp. 1-29 : 21

Emberiza rufigularis C. L. Brehm

Emberiza rufigularis C. L. Brehm, 1831: 1017 .

Now. Emberiza caesia Cretzschmar, 1828 . See Hartert (1904: 182).

Types (lost): unknown number of specimens, formerly in the private C. L. Brehm Collection (Renthendorf, Germany), collected by Hemprich and Ehrenberg in 1824 in “ Syrien ” [= Beirut, Lebanon]; see below.

Type locality. All “Syrian” E. caesia were collected at Beirut, Lebanon ( Lichtenstein 1825); we restrict here the type locality to the latter city.

Remarks. C. L. Brehm (1831: 299) recognized “Hemprich and Ehrenberg’s” E. rufibarba as a valid species. In Additions to the book, he created E. rufigularis for specimens with more vaulted head (p. 1017). Subsequently, he merged rufibarba with E. caesia , recognizing within the latter species the following four subspecies: longirostris (1 specimen found in his estate), crassirostris (2 specimens), tenuirostris (3 specimens), and rufigularis (3 specimens) (A. E. Brehm 1866: 8). The remains of the Brehm Collection are deposited in the AMNH, including four E. caesia from “ Syria ”. They include AMNH 456097 (ad. 3; labelled rufibarba ), AMNH 456098 (ad. 3; labelled tenuirostris), AMNH 456099 (juv. Ƥ; labelled tenuirostris), and AMNH 456100 (ad. Ƥ; originally labelled rufibarba , which was then crossed out and replaced with tenuirostris) (M. LeCroy, in litt. 2010). As noted by LeCroy (in litt. 2010), there is no indication that C. L. Brehm considered these specimens anything else. We thus do not consider these AMNH specimens types of E. rufigularis . While C. L. Brehm’s rufigularis was certainly based on one or more specimens collected by Hemprich and Ehrenberg in Lebanon, these specimens all seem to be lost.

Giebel (1875: 97) and Hartert (1904: 182) attributed rufigularis to C. L. Brehm (1855: 113), but the name originated from C. L. Brehm (1831) (see also Hartert 1918: 16, footnote).