Acanthiza whitlocki North

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 : 154

[ Acanthiza whitlocki North ]

Acanthiza whitlocki North, 1909: 55 (Lake Way, East Murchison District, Western Australia).

Now Acanthiza apicalis whitlocki North, 1909 . See Mayr, 1986b: 436, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 201–203.

No type was designated in the original description, but North said that his type series of two males and one female was among a collection of birds made by F.L. Whitlock in the vicinity of Lake Way for H.L. White. Dates of collection were not given, but the name was published in September 1909. There are three of Whitlock’s Lake Way specimens in AMNH from the Mathews Collection, all three of which I found in the Mathews catalog. Apparently, when Mathews began to catalog his collection, about 1909, he twice entered portions of it in more or less systematic order, but without noting from whom the specimens were obtained. About 1910, he began entering specimens as they came to him, usually giving the source of the specimens. All three of these Whitlock specimens were entered in the early parts of the catalog and show no provenance. Two were collected on 17 August 1909 (nos. 4001 and 4002) and would appear to have been collected too late to have been used in the September 1909 description. The third specimen is entered as Mathews number 2198 and bears a Mathews type label, marked ‘‘Cotype’’, with a reference to North’s description. The specimen retains Whitlock’s field label but no H.L. White label. Mathews often received Whitlock specimens directly from the collector or from the WAM, but he also often removed labels from specimens that he obtained from others. Because Mathews labeled this specimen a co-type (5 syntype), it was necessary to trace North’s original type series. Longmore (1991: 15) listed a male and a female syntype in AM, and Longmore (personal commun.) informed me that the third syntype is in MV, HLW 2142, collected by Whitlock in the East Murchison, Western Australia, on 5 July 1909. Therefore, Mathews’ specimen in AMNH has no standing as a type.