Quoyornis leucurus normani 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 : 254-255

Quoyornis leucurus normani Mathews

Quoyornis leucurus normani Mathews, 1914b: 93 (Norman River, North Queensland).

Now Peneoenanthe pulverulenta leucura (Gould, 1869) . See Mayr, 1986d: 574, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 356–357.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 659753 , adult female, collected at Normanton , 17.40S, 141.05E ( Storr, 1984: 186), Queensland, Australia,

on 5 December 1913, by Robin Kemp (no. 3580). From the Mathews Collection (no. 18476) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews only said that the type was from the Norman River, north Queensland. AMNH 659753 bears Kemp’s original label on the reverse of which Mathews has written ‘‘ Quoyornis leucurus normani Type’ ’; the pink Mathews Collection label on which he has written his catalog number (although this was not given in the original description) and ‘‘Type’’; and the Mathews green type label. The ‘‘p. 176’’ appearing on the pink label is a reference to this form in Mathews (1913a: 176). The specimen is in poor plumage .

Fourteen specimens were collected for Mathews by Kemp at Normanton between 5 December 1913 and 4 May 1914. Of these, only the type was cataloged by Mathews. Kemp’s collection of October 1913 from Normanton was the last collection cataloged by Mathews (on 5 January 1914). After the last entry of that collection (no. 18425), Mathews wrote ‘‘End of Collection’’. Thereafter, to number 18518, the last entry in the catalog, only individual specimens were entered, usually types. The fact that the above specimen was listed is further evidence that Mathews considered it his type. In order to validate his intent, I hereby designate AMNH 659753 the lectotype of Quoyornis leucurus normani . The series is variable in color of the back and presence/absence of a band of faint gray on the upper breast; given the uncertainties of the morphological changes occurring around the Gulf of Carpentaria ( Schodde and Mason, 1999: 357), Mathews’ intended type takes on added significance.

Mathews probably had the 13 additional specimens in hand before the publication of normani on 24 September 1914, and I consider them paralectotypes, AMNH 659744– 659752 and 659754–659757.