Malurus musgravi 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 : 106

[ Malurus musgravi Mathews ]

Malurus musgravi Mathews, 1922e: 62 , 69 (Musgrave Ranges, Central Australia).

Now Malurus splendens callainus Gould, 1867 . See Schodde, 1982: 56–57, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 93–95, Higgins et al., 2001: 309, and Johnstone and Storr, 2004: 30.

In the original description, Mathews (1922e: 62), described the type of ‘‘ musgravi ’’ as an adult male, total length 124 mm; culmen 8, wing 50, tail 55, tarsus 22, collected in the Musgrave Ranges, central Australia. It is not said to be illustrated. Mathews (1922e: 69) gave the range of ‘‘ musgravei ’’ as the ‘‘Musgrave and Everard Ranges’’. There is a female specimen, AMNH 601990, collected in the Everard Ranges on 9 August 1914 by S.A. White, that bears a yellow ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was illustrated in Mathews (1922e: pl. 460, lower right fig., opp. p. 61, text p. 62). It was not said to be a type and is, instead, a paratype of musgravi . A second paratype is AMNH 601982, immature male, collected in the Musgrave Range on 21 July 1914, by S.A. White (no. 1686). As Mathews did not enter S.A. White specimens from the 1914 trip into his catalog, it is not now possible to tell whether he had an adult male specimen from the Musgrave Range, nor did White (1915b: 753, under Malurus melanotus callainus ) give exact localities for his specimens. It is possible that the type of musgravi is in the SAMA.

Most authors use the subspecies name callainus for this form (see Schodde, 1982: 56–57, Higgins et al., 2001: 309, and Johnstone and Storr, 2004:30), contra Schodde and Mason (1999: 93–95). Until the identity of Gould’s type is definitely settled, it seems best to use the long-established name callainus.