Munia castaneothorax assimilis Mathews

LeCroy, Mary, 2013, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 11. Passeriformes: Parulidae, Drepanididae, Vireonidae, Icteridae, Fringillinae, Carduelinae, Estrildidae, And Viduinae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2013 (381), pp. 1-155 : 123

Munia castaneothorax assimilis Mathews

Munia castaneothorax assimilis Mathews, 1910: 28 (Eureka, Northern Territory).

Now Lonchura castaneothorax castaneothorax (Gould, 1837) . See Mathews, 1912a: 429; Mayr et al., 1968: 384; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 771–772; Dickinson, 2003: 736; and Payne, 2010: 374.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 721447 , adult male, collected at Eureka , Northern Territory, Australia, on 8 January 1903, by J.T. Tunney (no. 1025). From the Mathews Collection (no. 5308) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description, but mentioned no other specimens. According to his catalog, the holotype was obtained by Mathews from WAM. It was part of the collection made by J.T. Tunney in 1901–1903 and reported on by Hartert (1905a: 194–242). The collection was divided between Rothschild and WAM, with a subset sent to BMNH (Hartert: 1905a: 194). Mathews’ specimen bears the number 1025, which is Tunney’s field number (see Hartert, 1905a: 239). Apparently, Mathews obtained the single specimen, as the remainder of the Tunney specimens of this species in AMNH were never in the Mathews Collection. Specimens from the Mathews Collection collected in 1894–1895 in Northern Territory by Knut Dahl were not cataloged by Mathews until 1912 and thus were not available to him for the description of this form.

Eureka is said by Storr (1977: 108, 112) to be a former mine 33 km ENE of Pine Creek, 13.50S, 131.50E.