Melanocharis chloroptera Salvadori, 1876

Johannessen, Lars Erik & Lifjeld, Jan T., 2022, Type specimens of birds in the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway, Zootaxa 5150 (4), pp. 451-486 : 467-468

Melanocharis chloroptera Salvadori, 1876

Annali del Museo civico di Storia naturale di Genova, 1875 (7): 987 [printed March 1876].

Current name: Melanocharis nigra chloroptera Salvadori, 1876

Syntype NHMO-BI-61863 [I019655]; Study skin; Ad. M; Odoardo Beccari (d (414)), 24 May 1873; Indonesia: Giabu-lengan , Aru [Aru Islands]; 5.783° S 134.350° E ; 15b.

Remarks: The original label has, unfortunately, been replaced by a new label ( Figure 6b ) after the arrival of the specimen in NHMO, and the information on this label is neither complete (e.g., no indication that the specimen is a type), nor fully correct (the locality is given as ‘Gobia-Lengan, Aru’). It does, however, include information that the specimen was received from ‘Mus. Gen. 88’, an annotation that all the skins received from Genoa in 1888 have in common. Further, Collett received a printed list of specimens offered by the museum in Genoa (‘Duplicati della Nuova Guinea e delle Molucche’) together with the accompanying letter from Giacomo Doria, in which all the taxa in the shipment were ticked off (probably by Doria, based on his wording in the letter). In the list, Melanocharis chloroptera is indicated as ‘tipico’ and also ticked off, in the same way as for Ptilotis erythropleura , Zosterops novae guineae and Dicaeum misoriense . It must, therefore, be concluded that this specimen is part of the type series of this taxon.

Assuming that the locality on the label refers to Giabu-lengan on the Aru Islands, and the collection date (24 May 1873) is correct, the specimen can be either specimen d or h as listed by Salvadori (1881). Salvadori noted that the h specimen either must be a female or perhaps a young male, while specimen d was recorded as a male. As specimen h has been confirmed to be one of four specimens currently found in MSNG in Genoa (C.E. 11302, based on its original label; Enrico Borgo, pers. comm.), and the NHMO specimen clearly is an adult male (head and back shiny black; Gregory 2020), the latter must be concluded to be specimen d.

Of the eight specimens Salvadori (1876a) based his description on, four syntypes (C.E. 11300–11303) are in MSNG in Genoa ( Arbocco et al. 1979). While Arbocco et al. (1979) did not specify which specimens in Salvadori (1881) these corresponded to, it has been confirmed by Enrico Borgo at the MSNG that their original labels indicate that they correspond to specimens a, c, g and h. Another two (MZUT Av3953 and MZUT Av3954) are in MRSN in Turin ( Aimassi et al. 2020); these are specimens b and f, respectively, in Salvadori (1881) (Giorgio Aimassi, pers. comm.).

Warren & Harrison (1971) also list one syntype in the BMNH (currently NHMUK 1858.3.10.143), an adult male collected by A.R. Wallace in the Aru Islands. This specimen was not among the eight that Salvadori based his description directly on, as all of those were collected by Beccari ( Salvadori 1876b; 1881). However, Salvadori stated that M. chloroptera replaces the M. nigra of New Guinea in the Aru Islands ( Salvadori 1876b), referring to Gray (1858), who mentioned two specimens from the Aru Islands, a male and a female collected by Wallace. Although these were listed as Prionichilus niger in Gray (1858) ( Prionichilus niger = M. nigra ), Salvadori assumed that he had just overlooked the differences separating M. chloroptera from M. nigra , and by doing so suggested that also these specimens were to be considered M. chloroptera . The male NHMUK 1858.3.10.143 is one of these specimens, while the female was recently discovered to also be present in the NHMUK collection (NHMUK 1858.3.10.139), together with yet another male (NHMUK 1873.5.12.1052). The latter male arrived in the collection from Wallace in 1873, when he sold his private collection of birds to the museum (Hein van Grouw, pers. comm.). Both of the specimens mentioned by Gray (1858) are consequently mentioned in the original description. Further, both the previously known male ( Warren & Harrison 1971) and the two recently discovered specimens (Hein van Grouw, pers. comm.) have labels in Salvadori’s handwriting, and also have ‘co-type’ written on them. It, therefore, seems safe to conclude that Salvadori must have seen all three of these specimens. Based on this reasoning, and in accordance with Article 72.4.1.1 of the Code ( International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999), the three NHMUK specimens should probably also be considered syntypes of this taxon.

Figures

FIGURE 6. Labels of type specimens in the NHMO Bird Collection described by T. Salvadori. a) Ptilotis erythropleura NHMO-BI-86778 (collector’s label); b) Melanocharis chloroptera NHMO-BI-61863 (NHMO label); c) Zosterops novae guineae NHMO-BI-86649 (NHMO label); d) Dicaeum misoriense NHMO-BI-61856 (collector’s label).