Diaphorillas textilis carteri Mathews

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 : 116

Diaphorillas textilis carteri Mathews

Diaphorillas textilis carteri Mathews, 1917b: 87 (Dirk Hartog Island, West Australia).

Now Amytornis textilis textilis (Dumont, 1824) . See Schodde, 1982: 185, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 116–117.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 598063 , adult male, collected on Dirk Hartog Island , 25.50S, 113.03E ( Johnstone and Storr, 2004: 506), Western Australia, Australia, on 18 May 1916, by Tom Carter. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: No type was designated in the original description. Both male and female were described and details given for one male specimen. My measurements of the male specimen bearing a Mathews type label, AMNH 598063, agree with those details: Dirk Hartog Island, 18 May 1916, total length 192 mm, exposed culmen 13, wing 68, tail 93, tarsus 26.5 (Mathews’ measurement was 25). Mathews’ measurements had been added to Carter’s field label.

This specimen also bears a yellow Mathews ‘‘Figured’’ label, on which there is a reference to ‘‘A[ustral] A[vian] R[ecord] 1917’’. On p. 128, Mathews stated ‘‘I am including the coloured plate of Nesomalurus leucopterus and Diaphorillas carteri to face page 79 of this volume’’. The plate appears opposite p. 109 in the AMNH bound copy, but there is no information as to the type status of the grasswren illustrated. It is also figured in Mathews (1923a: pl. 467, top fig., opp. p. 172, text p. 173), where it is said to be the type of Diaphorillas textilis carteri with the same date and measurements given; this serves to designate it the lectotype. There are four paralectotypes in AMNH: AMNH 598064, male, 22 October 1916; AMNH 598065, female, 31 October 1916; AMNH 598066, female, 29 October 1916 (also figured in pl. 467); and AMNH 598067, female, 7 May 1916, all collected by Carter on Dirk Hartog Island. Mathews (1917b: 86) quoted field notes from Carter as late as 2 February 1917, so it is most likely that the October 1916 specimens were in his hands by the 21 July 1917 publication date of the name. Mathews’ catalog does not include any specimens collected after 1914.

Two additional Carter specimens from Dirk Hartog Island, AMNH 294760, male, and AMNH 294761, female, were purchased by Leonard C. Sanford from the dealer W.F.H. Rosenberg and given to AMNH in 1931. There is no information on whether these were ever in Mathews’ hands, and I do not consider them paralectotypes.