Microeca flavigaster terraereginae 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 : 240

Microeca flavigaster terraereginae Mathews

Microeca flavigaster terraereginae Mathews 1912a: 303 (North Queensland (Cairns)).

Now Microeca flavigaster laetissima Rothschild, 1916 . See Mayr, 1986d: 559, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 375–377.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 604670 , adult male, collected at Cairns , 16.51S, 145.43E (Times Atlas), Queensland, Australia, in August 1908, by Wilfred Stalker. From the Mathews Collection (no. 1596) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews gave his catalog number of the holotype in the original description. In addition to the Mathews and Rothschild type labels, the specimen also bears a Mathews Collection label. Paratypes are other specimens collected by Stalker at Cairns, Inkerman, and Mt. Elliot in 1907 and 1908: AMNH 604616–604621 and 604624– 604626 (Mathews nos. 1590–1592, 1594, 1595, and 1597–1599). Ingram (1908: 468), in his report on the collection Stalker made in the vicinity of Inkerman cattle station for Sir William Ingram in 1907, listed seven of these specimens from ‘‘Mount’’ Inkerman, Inkerman Spring, and Mt. Elliot as Microeca flaviventris . Stalker’s given name was Wilfred ( Ogilvie-Grant, 1915: vi), contra Ingram (1908) and Whittell (1954: 680–681).

Schodde and Mason (1999: 376–377) found the holotype of terraereginae to be from a zone of intergradation between Cape York Peninsula birds and those from central east Queensland and to be intergradient between the two ‘‘particularly in toning on face and throat; it is also closer to the latter [5 laetissima] in measurements (wing 79 mm, male)’’. The paratypes of terraereginae from Mt. Elliot and Inkerman, moreover, fall entirely within the range of laetissima Rothschild. With terraereginae thus best considered a synonym of laetissima, Schodde and Mason provided Microeca flavigaster flavissima for the Cape York Peninsula–south New Guinea form previously accepted as terraereginae by Mayr (1986d: 559).