Neophilemon orientalis confusus Mathews

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 126

Neophilemon orientalis confusus Mathews

Neophilemon orientalis confusus Mathews, 1923b: 39 (Cairns, North Queensland).

Now Philemon buceroides yorki Mathews, 1912 . See Salomonsen, 1967: 410, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 289–290, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 680– 681.

SYNTYPES: All collected at Cairns, 16.51S, 145.43E (Times Atlas), Northern Queensland, Australia: AMNH 697047 (Mathews no.?), male, August 1908, by P. Schraeder ; AMNH 697048 (3420), male, July 1908, by P. Schraeder ; AMNH 697049 (16901), female, 4 June 1884, by T.H. Bowyer-Bower ; AMNH 697050 (3422), female, August 1908, by P. Schraeder ; AMNH 697051 (3421), female, July 1908, by P. Schraeder ; AMNH 697052 (16900), unsexed, 11 June 1884, by T.H. Bowyer-Bower. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection .

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews said that the type was from Cairns; no range was given. The above six specimens from the Mathews Collection are from Cairns and must be considered syntypes as I have found no indication anywhere that Mathews considered any one of them his type. The number ‘‘817’’ that appears on Mathews’ labels refers to the number of this species in Mathews (1908).

Mathews (1912a: 422) had originally considered the northeast Queensland Philemon to be Philemon buceroides (Swainson) , re- stricting Swainson’s type locality to Cairns when he ( Mathews, 1912d: 102) named the Cape York population P. b. yorki . The generic name Neophilemon was introduced by Mathews (1912e: 117) with Philemon buceroides as the type species. Immediately thereafter, he ( Mathews, 1912e: 117) introduced the generic name Microphilemon with Buphaga orientalis Latham (5 Tropidorhynchus citreogularis Gould ) as the type species. When Hellmayr (1916: 101–102) found that Swainson’s type of P. buceroides was from Timor, not Australia, he accepted Mathews’ name yorki for the Australian form, accorded it full species status, and considered Mathews’ name gordoni a subspecies of P. yorki .

The Australasian Ornithologists’ Union Check List Committee having pointed out to Mathews that Latham’s and Gould’s names were not synonyms, Mathews (1923b: 39) then used Neophilemon orientalis (Latham) as the species name for the northern Australian populations of P. buceroides , restricting the type locality of nominate Neophilemon orientalis to Cooktown. Thus, this left the Cairns population, formerly bearing Swainson’s name, to be accounted for; Mathews’ (1923b: 39) solution was to immediately name Neophilemon orientalis confusus from Cairns. Salomonsen (1967: 410) recognized confusus in the species P. novaeguineae ; most recent authors have combined novaeguineae and buceroides in the single species buceroides (see Schodde and Mason, 1999: 290 for a discussion). Schodde and Mason (1999: 289–290) and Higgins et al. (2008: 680) did not recognize confusus.