Leptopoecile sophiae deserticola Hartert

LeCroy, M., 2008, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 7. Passeriformes: Sylviidae, Muscicapidae, Platysteiridae, Maluridae, Acanthizidae, Monarchidae, Rhipiduridae, And Petroicidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 313 (1), pp. 1-287 : 76-77

Leptopoecile sophiae deserticola Hartert

Leptopoecile sophiae deserticola Hartert, 1907e: 401 (Kara-Sai, East Turkestan).

Now Leptopoecile sophiae stoliczkae (Hume, 1874) . See Vaurie, 1957: 2–6, and Dickinson, 2003: 539.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 597480 , immature male, collected at Karasay (5 Kara-Sai), 36.48N, 83.48E (Times Atlas), Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu, China, in November 1889, by M.V. Pewzow. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Hartert said that he had five specimens but did not designate a type. Later, Hartert (1920: 441) listed the above specimen as the type of deserticola , thereby designating it the lectotype. I did not find paralectotypes in AMNH.

Vaurie (1957: 6) gave this locality as Qarasai, northern slope of the Astin Tagh; it is now included within the border of China. Vaurie (1972: 100–101) gave details of Pevtsov’s (so spelled by Vaurie) expedition and reference to extensive notes on it published in English, with a map, by Morgan (1893).

See Sturmbauer et al. (1998) for molecular studies that place Leptopoecile sophiae and Aegithalos caudatus in a single clade.