Macropus tibol Miklouho-Maclay, 1885a

Parnaby, Harry & Gill, Anthony C., 2021, Mammal type specimens in the Macleay Collections, University of Sydney, Zootaxa 4975 (2), pp. 201-252 : 244-245

Macropus tibol Miklouho-Maclay, 1885a

Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (ser. 1) 10 (2), 141, plate 19. (31st July 1885).

Description read at the 29th April 1885 meeting of the LSNSW.

Current name. New Guinea Pademelon Thylogale browni browni (Ramsay, 1877) following Flannery (1992).

Taxonomic status. Thomas (1888) synonymised Macropus tibol with Macropus browni Ramsay , believing that Miklouho-Maclay’s specimens were subadults of the latter species. The prevailing view that Macropus tibol is not a distinct species needs to be re-examined. Recent genetic studies of New Guinean Thylogale have revealed an unresolved mismatch between distinct lineages and all three currently recognised species ( Eldridge & Coulson 2015).

Possible syntypes. Whereabouts unknown. The original account implies that the material included two young males represented by at least one skin and two skulls.

Type locality. “Maclay Coast” (Miklouho-Maclay), Madang Province, Papua New Guinea.

Comments. Miklouho-Maclay stated that the description is based on two males, one of which was a stuffed skin mount, as indicated in the caption to his fig. 1. The material has not been reported since the original account. Miklouho-Maclay stated that his description is based partly from a freshly deceased male killed by a dog in 1876, and the only body measurements provided were taken from that individual soon after death. He stated that he shot the other male in 1872, which is also noted in his diary entry for 15th August ( Sentinella 1975: 210). In his journal entry for 25th October 1872, Miklouho-Maclay noted that, while visiting the village of Male on his first visit to the Maclay Coast, locals gave him two skulls of M. tibol but without jaws ( Sentinella 1975: 226). We do not know if the two skulls reached Sydney with Miklouho-Maclay.

Miklouho-Maclay does not specify the collection in which his material of tibol was held but it might have been his own, given that he typically acknowledged access to material in Macleay’s Collection in his other mammal papers. An account of the LSNSW meeting at which Miklouho-Maclay presented his paper does not mention him in a detailed description of exhibits ( Anonymous 1885). However, it is not known whether either of his specimens made it to Sydney on his return from the Maclay Coast and we have not found documentation that either specimen was in Macleay’s Collection. The MAMU 1890s Catalogue does not mention Macropus tibol , and there are no candidates listed under “ Macropus browni ” (now Thylogale browni ). All Thylogale dry skins listed in that Catalogue under various names are now accounted for.

Both syntypes were collected more than a decade before publication of the account and might have been mislaid, destroyed or were inaccessible in storage. We have not found any evidence that Miklouho-Maclay had material of M. tibol in Sydney at the time he prepared his species account but we have not examined all of his correspondence and notes. It is possible that Miklouho-Maclay did not have access to a stuffed skin when preparing his description. It would have been possible to prepare the description entirely from measurements, notes, drawings and photographs taken during his time at the Maclay Coast. The caption to fig. 1 in his paper, a drawing of a whole animal, is intriguing. It states that the drawing was taken partly from life and partly from a photograph of a stuffed specimen. Notably, the claws on the feet are drawn at a sharp angle which is consistent with rigor mortis. This is a very unnatural position for a properly prepared skin mount but is consistent with a drawing prepared from a recently deceased wallaby.

Parnaby et al. (2017) explored the possibility that AM M.2031, an unsexed skin with an extracted skull sent from MAMU in 1907, might be one of the male syntypes. They concluded that it probably was not a syntype and further support for that conclusion arises from the context of that shipment of specimens from MAMU. First, the entire shipment of vertebrates were fluid-preserved and the skull of AM M.2031 was almost certainly extracted at the AM. Second, as discussed in the Introduction, an associated letter from the Macleay Museum Committee, considered the donated specimens to be worthless and a waste of space. It seems unlikely that individual skulls would also have been sent from the MAMU dry Collection under these circumstances.

Miklouho-Maclay’s description of the age of the two males mentioned in his account is ambiguous, initially describing both as adult, and later mentioning that the animal figured and described was a young male. It is obvious from his skull illustrations that the specimen(s) illustrated is a subadult, based on the rounded cranial vault and the un-erupted molars, as noted by Thomas (1888). Although not stated in the text, skulls of two individuals are illustrated in plate 19 of the original account. The skull in fig. 6 has a tooth row with fully erupted rear molars and three other erupted teeth, in contrast to the partially erupted rear molars and two fully erupted teeth seen in fig. 9. The asymmetry and lack of detail of the skull illustrated in fig. 6 suggests either a free-hand sketch or else shows considerable optical distortion, while figs 7–11 are more detailed and most likely prepared using a camera lucida.

Several external measurements are given in the original description but no cranial or dental measurements. Selected skull and dental measurements ( Table 11 ) are taken from plate 19 of the original account.