Tachyphonus Napensis Lawrence

LeCroy, Mary, 2012, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 10. Passeriformes: Emberizidae: Emberizinae, Catamblyrhynchinae, Cardinalinae, Thraupinae, And Tersininae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2012 (368), pp. 1-125 : 76

Tachyphonus Napensis Lawrence

Tachyphonus Napensis Lawrence, 1864a: 42 (Napo River).

Now Tachyphonus surinamus napensis Lawrence, 1864 . See Chapman, 1917: 616, Hellmayr, 1936: 335, Zimmer, 1945: 20–21, Isler and Isler, 1999: 126–128, and Dickinson, 2003: 805.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 40945 , male, ‘‘ Napo,’’ collected by W.E. Moore. From the G.N. Lawrence Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Lawrence described only the male, designated no type, and said that napensis was from the ‘‘ Napo River’’ and in his collection. The above lectotype and the paralectotype listed below are both labeled ‘‘Napo’’ and ‘‘Type’’ by Lawrence . Chapman’s (1917: 616) designation of a lectotype is explicit: ‘‘ Lawrence (Ann. Lyc. N.H. VIII, 1864, p. 42) wrote the word ‘type’ on two specimens of napensis but neither is specifically designated in his description. I select therefore Am. Mus. No. 40945 ‘ Napo, ³, W.E. Moore’ as the type of this form.’’ This is a valid designation of a lectotype (ICZN, 1999:82, Art. 74.5). The paralectotype is: AMNH 40946, male, ‘‘ Napo,’’ collected by ‘‘I and G’’ or ‘‘J and S,’’ from the G.N. Lawrence Collection.

Zimmer (1945: 20–21), in a long discussion of napensis and the two ‘‘cotypes,’’ recognized the composite nature of the two syntypes and preferred not to recognize Chapman’s designation of a lectotype because of the restriction that this placed on subsequent ‘‘rearrangement.’’ Zimmer admits that, due to the poor condition of the second ‘‘cotype,’’ Lawrence’s description must have been mostly based on AMNH 40945. The second specimen, AMNH 40946, has a lighter rump and is equated by Zimmer with T. s. brevipes. Most of the Napo River specimens that Zimmer saw were of the lighter-rumped form and he thought the darker-rumped of Lawrence’s syntypes probably came from the Amazon near the mouth of the Napo, and not from the Napo itself. Zimmer himself preferred restriction of type locality to designation of a lectotype and attempted to reconcile the two approaches by restricting the type locality of napensis to Orissa, Peru, east of a point across the Amazon from the mouth of the Napo, a locality where the dark-rumped form is found. While Zimmer’s restriction of the type locality is invalid in light of Chapman’s prior lectotypification, his objective of having the name apply to the dark-rumped form is met by the specimen that Chapman had chosen as the lectotype. Both specimens bear AMNH type labels and remain in the type collection with an additional label on each clarifying its present status.