Monarcha kurandi 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 : 200-201

Monarcha kurandi Mathews

Monarcha kurandi Mathews, 1915a: 130 (Cape York, Queensland).

Now Monarcha frater canescens Salvadori, 1876 . See Watson et al., 1986c: 506, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 497–498, and Filardi and Smith, 2005.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 654177 , adult female, collected at Piara (5 Paira, on label), 10.44S, 142.34E ( USBGN, 1957b), Mud Bay, Cape York, Queensland, Australia, on 27 February 1911, by W.R. McLennan. From the Mathews Collection (no. 17317) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In his original description, Mathews said that his type was from Cape York and had a pearl gray back, black primaries and secondaries, and a brown tail. AMNH 654177 is the only Mathews specimen from Cape York of which this is true, as per note by the late Ian Galbraith in the type tray, except for the type of claudia (see below), and the specimen should be considered the holotype. The specimen bears, in addition to the collector’s label, Mathews and Rothschild type labels and a yellow ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was illustrated in Mathews (1921b: pl. 411, upper fig., opp. p. 94, text p. 95), where the described and figured female, collected on Cape York on 27 February 1911, was said to be the type of M. c. kurandi , thereby confirming that AMNH 654177 is Mathews’ holotype.

The specimen is number 17317 in Mathews’ catalog, although this number was not mentioned; it was cataloged on 2 June 1913, is the single specimen entered there, and was noted as having been obtained from Macgillivray, for whom McLennan collected. This is undoubtedly William Rae McLennan (so spelled on his field label, but spelled Maclennan in Whittell, 1954: 476).

Both the Mathews and the Rothschild type labels and Mathews (1921b: 95) give the name of this form as ‘‘ Monarcha canescens kurandi ’’, but it was a binomen in the original description.

A second specimen, AMNH 654195, a male from Kuranda, 17 March 1913, bears a pink Mathews Collection label marked ‘‘ Monarcha melanopsis kurandi ’’ and ‘‘Type’’ in Mathews’ hand, and a Rothschild type label marked ‘‘ Monarcha kurandi ’’. It is of the species Monarcha melanopsis , but it is not the type of kurandi , which was stated to be a female from Cape York, as noted above. Galbraith, in his note, thought that AMNH 654195 was a paratype of kurandi , but this is unlikely (see discussion above under Monarcha melanopsis pallida Mathews ).

Galbraith, in his note, called attention to this duplication of labeling as a source of confusion. Keast (1958: 91) saw both specimens at AMNH, but in citing the data for the type of kurandi , gave the sex as male, 17 March as the collecting date, and Cape York as the locality, confusing the data on the two specimens. Schodde and Mason (1999: 498) noted the error in the sex of the type as cited by Keast.

Piara or ‘‘Paira’’ was the home of Bert Vidgen on Muddy Bay, where a number of early collectors on Cape York stayed.