Petaurides cinereus Ramsay, 1890a

Parnaby, Harry E., Ingleby, Sandy & Divljan, Anja, 2017, Type Specimens of Non-fossil Mammals in the Australian Museum, Sydney, Records of the Australian Museum 69 (5), pp. 277-420 : 322-323

Petaurides cinereus Ramsay, 1890a

Rec. Aust. Mus. 1(4): 77. (30 September 1890).

Common name. Northern Greater Glider.

Current name. Petauroides minor ( Collett, 1887) , following Jackson & Groves (2015), who elevated minor to species rank.

Syntypes. (2, by subsequent determination). M.362, adult, sex indeterminate from skin but given as male in old, handwritten type specimen index card, skin mount, label with skin states “?skull”, skull not sighted. An X-ray image of the specimen taken in 2013 revealed that the skull is not in the skin. M.363, female adult, skin mount, skull in situ, both registered in August 1889, both marked as “Belideus sp nov.” and amended in pencil: “types of cinereus Ramsay ”, collected by E. J. Cairn and R. Grant. Both specimens collected in 1889 ( Ramsay 1890a). The old specimen index card has one card for both specimens and states “M.362–3 (Group of 2), male, female”, indicating that originally both skin mounts were displayed as a group. The original M Register entry of August 1889 for both specimens is “Belidius sp. nov. ” with no other data.

Condition. M.362 and M.363: both skin mounts with faded fur, wire is protruding through both manus and pes on both mounts.

Type locality. “ One of the spurs of the Bellenden Ker Range, North Queensland ” Ramsay (1890a). The locality column of the M Register has in old handwriting “Herberton Distr. Queensland fide Grant” against both numbers, added subsequent to the initial register entry.

Comments. Ramsay (1890a) states that two specimens were obtained but he did not cite registration numbers. He described a male specimen, giving external and cranial measurements, which is presumably M.362, but no information is given for the second specimen. We have not found any indication of the whereabouts of Ramsay’s male skull, or any indication that it is in the AM Mammal Collection. McKay (1988b) designated M.12809, cranium and dentaries only, as a lectotype. A very old label in the M.12809 skull box reads “ Petauroides cinereus sp nov. skull from type of the sp” on one side and on the other “Belideus ( Petaurus ) cinerea large grey one Cairn and Grant”. Despite these indications, the skull has been identified morphologically and by DNA sequencing as a specimen of Pseudocheirus peregrinus (K. Aplin, pers. comm. 2013), thereby invalidating lectotype status. The systematics of Petauroides volans ( Kerr, 1792) and associated taxa are currently under investigation (K. Aplin pers. comm.) and designation of a lectotype is premature.