Ptilotis leucotis torringtoni 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 : 100

Ptilotis leucotis torringtoni Mathews

Ptilotis leucotis torringtoni Mathews, 1912c: 80 (Torrington, New South Wales).

Now Lichenostomus leucotis novaenorciae (Milligan, 1904) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 384, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 240–241, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 602–603.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 695083 , unsexed, collected at Torrington , 29.19S, 151.42E ( USBGN, 1957), New South Wales, Australia, in March 1909. From the Mathews Collection (no. 11674) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description and gave the range as ‘‘ North New South Wales (Queensland?).’’ According to his catalog, Mathews received this specimen from Edwin Ashby ; it bears an original label, on which Ashby’s name does not appear, and Mathews and Rothschild type labels. This specimen has the obsolete cream tips on the rectrices characteristic of novaenorciae as defined by Schodde and Mason (1999: 240). There are two specimens that are questionably paratypes: AMNH 695085 (Mathews no. 3228), unsexed, Kurrajong , New South Wales, 31 March 1899, although this locality is hardly in the northern part of the state ; and AMNH 695084 , unsexed, Coomooboolaroo, Queensland, 1883, by C. Lumholtz, although Mathews questioned its occurrence in Queensland. Robert Collett, ZMO, probably would have sent this latter specimen to Mathews, who was cataloging specimens he received from Collett in early 1912 ; but I did not find this specimen in Mathews’ catalog .

Salomonsen (1967: 384) synonymized torringtoni with nominate leucotis .