Malurus pulcherrimus stirlingi Mathews

LeCroy, M., 2008, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 7. Passeriformes: Sylviidae, Muscicapidae, Platysteiridae, Maluridae, Acanthizidae, Monarchidae, Rhipiduridae, And Petroicidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 313 (1), pp. 1-287 : 111

Malurus pulcherrimus stirlingi Mathews

Malurus pulcherrimus stirlingi Mathews, 1913b: 192 (Stirling Ranges).

Now Malurus pulcherrimus Gould,1844 . See Schodde, 1982: 95, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 88.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 602360 , male, collect- ed in the Stirling Range , 34.23S, 117.50E ( USBGN, 1957b), Western Australia, Australia, on 22 October 1911, by F.L. Whitlock. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews gave his catalog number of the type as ‘‘10503’’, and indeed the data entered for that specimen agree with the data published for the type. However, the same data are also entered for his number 10499 (AMNH 602359). Catalog numbers are not present on the labels of either specimen, so there is no indication as to which one may be the type. The main characteristics given by Mathews to distinguish nominate pulcherrimus from stirlingi were that stirlingi had the ‘‘chestnut scapulars and the head much darker, and the ear-coverts lighter’’. Of the two specimens, AMNH 602360 has the head darker and the ear coverts slightly lighter, and it seems reasonable to assume that Mathews chose as type the specimen best demonstrating his perceived differences.

Seven paratypes were cataloged at the same time: AMNH 602356 (Mathews no. 10502), male ; AMNH 602357 (10500), male ; AMNH 602358 (10501), male ; AMNH 602359 (10499), male: AMNH 602361 (10498), male ; AMNH 602362 (6148), female ; and AMNH 602363 (10497), female. AMNH 602356 bears a yellow ‘‘ Figured’ ’ label and was illustrated in Mathews (1922e: pl. 463, upper right fig., opp. p. 106, text p. 111). Mathews correctly gave the date of collection of the figured specimen as 16 September 1911 but did not say that it was a type. He had obtained it from H.L. White, but it, like the others, was collected by Whitlock.