Sericornis magnirostris keri 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 : 137-138

Sericornis magnirostris keri Mathews

Sericornis magnirostris keri Mathews, 1920d: 106 (Bellenden Ker, Queensland).

Now Sericornis keri Mathews, 1920 . See Galbraith and Parker, 1969, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 172.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 601616 , unsexed (but see below), collected on Bellenden Ker Range , 17.16S, 145.50E ( USBGN, 1957b), Queensland, Australia, in June 1889, by Kendall Broadbent (no. 3). From the Mathews Collection (no. 18459) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: The history of this specimen has been traced by Galbraith and Parker (1969). Mathews cataloged it in 1914, noting that he obtained it from QM, but he did not publish this information in his description. It is the only specimen of S. keri in AMNH.

The holotype bears six labels. Broadbent’s original label reads as follows: ‘‘No. 3, New Sericornis, Loc. Bellenden Ker , 5960 ft, north peak, June of 89’’. A smaller, torn tag (written by De Vis, according to Galbraith and Parker, 1969: 213) reads: ‘‘c.64, [i]ris gld, 60 ft’’ (apparently referring to the 5960 ft altitude). The Mathews Collection label gives the collecting locality and date, the Mathews catalog number, and ‘‘p. 221’’, which refers to the page number in Mathews (1913a); its reverse has measurements and is marked ‘‘Type of keri Math. ’’. The yellow ‘‘Figured’’ label indicates that the specimen was illustrated in Mathews (1922e: pl. 454, bottom fig., opp. p. 3, text p. 4), where it is confirmed that this specimen is the holotype. Also attached are a Rothschild Collection label stamped with the AMNH catalog number and a Rothschild type label.

Broadbent (1902: 381), in his report on his collection from Bellenden Ker, reported that his specimens were collected at 5200 ft, and Galbraith and Parker (1969: 214) noted that the locality was the south peak rather than the north peak, according to information obtained from other accounts of the expedition.

Galbraith and Parker (1969: 214) also noted that according to De Vis, Broadbent indicated the sex of his specimens by the way he crossed their legs, with males having their left legs crossed over their right, as does this holotype. They point out the possible problems associated with this technique, but the indications are that the holotype is a male.