Ptiloris paradisea dyotti Mathews

Lecroy, Mary, 2014, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2014 (393), pp. 1-165 : 95-96

Ptiloris paradisea dyotti Mathews

Ptiloris paradisea dyotti Mathews, 1915a: 133 (Cairns, North Queensland).

Now Ptiloris victoriae Gould, 1850 . See Mayr, 1962d: 187; Gilliard, 1969: 117; Schodde and Mason, 1999: 529; Christidis and Boles, 2008: 200–201; and Frith and Frith, 2009b: 476.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 677755, adult male, Cairns, 16.51S, 145.43E (Times Atlas), Queensland, Australia, on 8 October 1884, by T.H. Bowyer-Bower (no. 108). From the Mathews Collection (no. 16842) via the Rothschild Collection.

AMNH 677734, adult male, Barron River, Queensland, Australia, on 21 July 1884, by T.H. Bowyer-Bower (no. 109). From the Mathews Collection (no. 16844) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews (1915a: 133) introduced the name dyotti, stating that the type was from Cairns, Queensland, and that it differed from victoriae ‘‘in its generally richer, darker coloration,’’ apparently referring to male plumage. I am considering AMNH 677755 a syntype of dyotti based on additional information I have uncovered concerning the specimen. It is the only Mathews specimen cataloged at AMNH as having come from Cairns.

There is no original label on this specimen. The Mathews Collection label gives the collecting locality as Cairns, the date as 8- 10-84, and Mathews’ catalog number as 16842. In his catalog, it is listed as having been collected by T.H. Bowyer-Bower on the correct date. None of the Bowyer-Bower specimens cataloged at that time had locality data entered.

Mathews (1942: 52–53) was given part of Bowyer-Bower’s collection by his mother, and although the specimens were collected much earlier, they were not cataloged by Mathews until 1913. In 1915, Mathews (1915b: 15–20, 29–33, 56–62) published a series of papers on the Queensland part of this collection. There, on page 61, he listed three specimens of Ptiloris paradisea victoriae : two of them with Bowyer-Bower’s nos. 109 and 111, were females, from the Barron River, collected on 21 July and 20 August 1884, and one with Bowyer-Bower’s no. 108, was male, from ‘‘Gordan’s Camp,’’ collected on 8 October 1884. Mathews (1915b: 15) had noted that Gordan’s Camp was at Cairns. AMNH 677755 still bears a tiny tag with Bowyer-Bower’s no. 108 on it.

Because the description seemed to refer only to males, the correspondence in date between Mathews’ reporting on Bowyer- Bower’s Queensland collection and the publication of Ptiloris paradisea dyotti led me to believe that this male may have been the only specimen that Mathews considered when he described dyotti. The other two birds listed by Mathews (1915b: 61) were females, and I did not consider them part of the type series.

However, when I checked Mathews’ catalog, I found that he had entered four Bowyer- Bower specimens, not three. His no. 16845, female, collected on 20 August 1884, is now AMNH 677745 and bears a small tag with Bowyer-Bower’s no. 111. These data connect it to one of the females listed by Mathews (1915b: 61).

The problem arises with Mathews’ no. 16843, female, and no. 16844, male, both collected on 21 July 1884. The female should be the specimen listed by Mathews (1915b: 61) bearing Bowyer-Bower’s no. 109. It is not to be found either in the AMNH catalog or in the collection. On the other hand, the male, now AMNH 677734, has a small tag with Bowyer-Bower’s no. 109 attached to one leg, and Mathews’ collection label on which is written his catalog no. 16844, ‘‘Barron River,’’ and 21 July 1884. Mathews was prone to consider ‘‘Barron River’’ specimens, even when they came from the Atherton Tableland, as being from the Cairns area, and in fact had titled his report on Bowyer- Bower’s Queensland specimens as ‘‘Birds from the Cairns District, Queensland.’’ This specimen undoubtedly came to Mathews at the same time as the rest of Bowyer-Bower’s collection and also must have been part of his type series of dyotti. I consider it a second syntype.