Myiagra rubecula melvillensis 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 : 208

Myiagra rubecula melvillensis Mathews

Myiagra rubecula melvillensis Mathews, 1912c: 41 (Melville Island, Northern Territory).

Now Myiagra rubecula concinna Gould, 1848 . See Watson et al., 1986c: 519, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 509–511, and Schodde and Dickinson, 2005.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 653060 , adult male, collected at Coopers Camp , Apsley Strait, 11.35S, 130.28E ( USBGN, 1957b), Melville Island, Northern Territory, Australia, on 9 October 1911, by J.P. Rogers (no. 2144). From the Mathews Collection (no. 10638) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description. In addition to Rogers’ field label, the specimen bears a Rothschild Museum label printed ‘‘Ex. coll. G.M. Mathews’’ as well as Mathews and Rothschild type labels.

Paratypes: AMNH 653062 (Mathews no. 11327, Rogers no. 2359), male, 7 November ; AMNH 653064 (11326, 2544), male, 28 November ; AMNH 653067 (10640, 2145), female, 9 October ; AMNH 653068 (10641, 2254), female, 22 October ; AMNH 653069 (10639, 2185), female, 13 October ; and AMNH 653072 (11328, 2596), male, 7 December. They were all collected at Coopers Camp in 1911 by Rogers, whose 1912 specimens were not cataloged by Mathews until July 1912, long after the publication of the name on 2 April 1912 .

Schodde and Dickinson (2005), as first revisers, have selected Mathews’ name Monarcha alecto melvillensis as the senior secondary homonym over Myiagra rubecula melvillensis , published in the same publication. Thus, Myiagra rubecula melvillensis is both junior and invalid when the species alecto is considered a member of the genus Myiagra , as it is at present.