Sminthopsis larapinta Spencer, 1896a

Parnaby, Harry E., Ingleby, Sandy & Divljan, Anja, 2017, Type Specimens of Non-fossil Mammals in the Australian Museum, Sydney, Records of the Australian Museum 69 (5), pp. 277-420 : 312

Sminthopsis larapinta Spencer, 1896a

Report of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, Zoology Part 2, 33, plate 2, 2a, 2b. (February 1896).

Common name. Stripe-faced Dunnart.

Current name. Sminthopsis macroura macroura ( Gould, 1845) , following Jackson & Groves (2015). Regarded as a subspecies of S. macroura by Baker (2015). Status unresolved, belongs to the S. macroura species complex that requires further work, see Jackson & Groves (2015). This taxon is considered likely to be a distinct species by Blacket et al. (2001) but we follow existing nomenclature until such time as it is formally re-instated as a species.

? Paralectotypes. (2). M.1142, adult male, skull, skin mount; M.1143 (not sighted), sex not recorded, originally stamped as “ Gallery ” (= skin mount) in M Register entry but it is not known if skull in situ; both “ Charlotte Waters, Central Australia ”, both presented by Prof. B. Spencer, registered at the AM on 10 October 1896, both as “ Sminthopsis larapinta ” but sex not indicated, nor if the animals were in alc. when first presented by Spencer .

Type locality. Charlotte Waters, Northern Territory, Australia.

Comments. Troughton (1965a) considered M.1142 to be an example of S. larapinta , but he does not indicate whether he considered it to be one of the specimens used in Spencer’s description. Troughton stated that he had examined “four spirit specimens of the original Spencer series from Charlotte Waters” in the MV and refers to the “ holotype ” without citing a registration number. Spencer (1896a) described larapinta from three males in alc. which he designated A, B, and C. All were collected by P. M. Byrne from Charlotte Waters. Dixon (1970) designated specimen A as lectotype and stated that the remaining two male paralectotypes had not been located. The two AM specimens were registered in October 1896 following receipt of a batch of material from Spencer, though without cross references to relevant surviving correspondence (some of Spencer’s correspondence to the AM was destroyed in c. 1900). Although M.1142 and M.1143 could be the missing paralectotypes mentioned by Dixon (1970), it is also possible that they were among the unknown number of specimens sent to Spencer by his collectors at various times after the Horn Expedition, after he had completed the manuscript of the Horn report. For example, Byrne, who collected the original three males, also sent specimens including a female, to Spencer in October 1895 ( Calaby, 1996). Spencer received the manuscript proofs of the Horn Report in September 1895 ( Calaby, 1996) and the report was published in February 1896.

Specimen M.1143 has not been sighted in the collection during the past few decades and is not mentioned by Troughton (1965a).