Phascogale macdonnellensis Spencer, 1895a

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 : 310

Phascogale macdonnellensis Spencer, 1895a

Proc. R. Soc. Vic. 7: 222. (January 1895).

Common name. Fat-tailed Pseudantechinus .

Current name. Pseudantechinus macdonnellensis ( Spencer, 1895a) , following Jackson & Groves (2015).

? Syntype. M.1004,?male, adult, skull, skin mount, registered 8 September 1895, from “Central Australia ” = Northern Territory, presented by Baldwin Spencer , as a skin mount .

Condition. Cranium is missing right zygomatic arch, right auditory capsule, occipital area and section of right lateral braincase wall and floor; hole in left frontal; both dentaries complete. Skin mount: faded, tail tip almost detached, left ear torn and tip missing, missing toes on the right manus, a fracture on the tail, sparse fur on the ventral surface and the right side. Considered to be adult, based on dentition and sutures. Sex not determined (skin mount has no signs of scrotum or pouch but, as an adult, it could be a male with scrotum removed).

Type locality. Alice Springs district, Northern Territory, Australia.

Topotypes. (2). M.1145, adult?female, skin mount, skull in situ; M.1146, adult male, skull, skin mount; both from Alice Springs, donated by Baldwin Spencer, registered 10 October 1896. Collector and collection date not given. There is no associated correspondence listed in the M Register for either specimen.

Comments. Correspondence from Spencer dated 5 Sept 1895 (AM Archives AMS9, Letters Received, S:65/1895) clearly indicates that one male macdonnellensis was sent to the AM; it was registered as M.1004 but without further data. There was no indication that it was a type although Spencer used the term “type” in other correspondence. Spencer (1895a) did not indicate the number of specimens examined but more than one is implied by the statement that “the first specimen was found by Mounted Trooper South …”. As noted by Calaby (1996), Spencer (1895b), published in January, states that he had three specimens for his description, a male and two females. Dixon (1970) listed C7804 (a female) as a syntype, noting an attached label marked “type”, apparently Spencer’s original tag. She incorrectly cites Trooper South as the collector—he obtained a male specimen. Dixon states that the only other specimen listed in the MV register is a male; presumably she had reason to doubt the type status of this specimen.

We are unable to determine whether either M.1004 or the MV male cited by Dixon (1970) is the syntype male. While it is possible that M.1004 (assuming that it is male) is the missing male syntype, it might be one of a series of specimens obtained after Spencer prepared the initial description. In his report on the Horn Expedition, Spencer (1896a) indicated that he had acquired 13 specimens by that time and M.1004 could have been one of these. Calaby (1996) provided insights into specimens sent to Spencer by collectors after the Horn Expedition. In a letter to Spencer dated 29 July 1895, F. J. Gillen, one of Spencer’s collectors, indicates that he was about to ship seven or eight specimens of this species to Spencer. The AM specimen could have been one of these, given that Spencer sent it to the AM in September 1895 and the fact that other shipments to Spencer were prior to November 1895 ( Calaby, 1996).

Mahoney & Ride (1988b) cited MV C7804 as the holotype, presumably because the ambiguity of Spencer’s original account could allow an interpretation that it was based on one specimen. We do not recognize the inference of a holotype by Mahoney & Ride (1988b) as constituting lectotype designation because, prior to their work, there was no agreement that the species had been based on a single specimen. To the contrary, Dixon (1970) had assumed the existence of a syntype series (see Article 74.6, the Code).