Certhidea mentalis Ridgway

LeCroy, Mary, 2012, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 10. Passeriformes: Emberizidae: Emberizinae, Catamblyrhynchinae, Cardinalinae, Thraupinae, And Tersininae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2012 (368), pp. 1-125 : 42

Certhidea mentalis Ridgway

Certhidea mentalis Ridgway, 1894: 359 (Tower Island).

Now Certhidea olivacea mentalis Ridgway, 1894 . See Hellmayr, 1938: 143, Paynter, 1970b: 167, and Dickinson, 2003: 796.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 522582 , unsexed, collected on Genovesa (5 Tower) Island, 00.20N, 89.58W ( Paynter, 1993), Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, on 2 September 1891. From the G. Baur Collection (no. 594) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Ridgway designated Baur specimen no. 594 the holotype in the original description and said that there were five specimens in the Baur Collection. The holotype bears an unnumbered USNM type label attached by Ridgway, a Rothschild type label with reference to the original description, and an USNM collection label with Baur data filled in.

Presumably, Ridgway (1894: 357) had the entire Baur Galapagos collection at his disposal for study soon after Baur returned from the Galapagos, but had apparently returned the specimens to Baur before the delayed publication of his paper ( Ridgway, 1896a: 293). Rothschild then purchased some 1100 specimens from Baur ( Rothschild and Hartert, 1899: 141), but it is not known whether this was the entire collection. Some of the specimens were turned over for sale to W.F.H. Rosenberg, a London dealer in natural history items. In the case of C. mentalis, Ridgway said that there were five specimens in Baur’s collection. This may mean in addition to the type, for there are in fact five specimens now in AMNH that could be considered paratypes, two of which were exchanged to AMNH from W.F.H. Rosenberg before the Rothschild Collection was purchased. Details of the labeling of these five specimens, all from the 1891 collection, follow. Exchanged from Rosenberg: AMNH 156538, unnumbered USNM collection label only, marked ‘‘ Certhidea mentalis sp. nov.,’’ M-1 or Nr-1, Baur no. 638, ex spirits. AMNH 156539, Rothschild label only, marked Baur, ex spirits. From the Rothschild Collection: AMNH 522563, female, Rothschild label only, marked Baur, ex spirits. AMNH 522583, unnumbered USNM label, marked ‘‘ Certhidea mentalis sp. nov.,’’ Z-1, Baur no. 635; Rothschild label, Baur ex spirits. AMNH 522584, unnumbered USNM label, marked ‘‘ Certhidea mentalis sp. nov.,’’ A-2, Baur no. 634; Rothschild label, Baur ex spirits.