Munia nigerrima Rothschild and Hartert

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 : 122

Munia nigerrima Rothschild and Hartert

Munia nigerrima Rothschild and Hartert, 1899: 139 (New Hanover).

Now Lonchura hunsteini nigerrima ( Rothschild and Hartert, 1899) . See Hartert, 1919a: 143; Mayr et al., 1968: 384; Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 399; Dickinson, 2003: 736; and Payne, 2010: 377.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 721341 , adult male, collected on New Hanover Island , 02.35S, 150.10E (PNG Reference Map, 1984), New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, in 1897, by Herbert Cayley-Webster. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: For the original description, Rothschild and Hartert had two specimens that had been preserved in spirits, an adult male and an immature; no type was designated. Hartert (1919a: 143) listed the adult male as the type, thereby designating it the lectotype. The paralectotype is AMNH 721342 , immature, collected on New Hanover Island in 1897 by Cayley-Webster .

Cayley-Webster (1898: 282–298) described his stay on New Hanover, and Hartert (in Cayley-Webster, 1898: 369–375) provided a preliminary list of the birds collected, on which no specimen of ‘‘ Munia ’’ appeared. However, Hartert mentioned (p. 369) that additional species were preserved in spirits and had not all been identified. Seven additional species were found in the spirit collection and reported on by Rothschild and Hartert (1899). In February 1923, Albert S. Meek sent Albert F. Eichhorn to collect on New Hanover for Rothschild, and Hartert (1924a: 194, 213) further commented on Cayley-Webster’s collection when reporting on Eichhorn’s.