Mirafra longonotensis van Someren

LeCROY, M. A. R. Y., 2003, TYPE SPECIMENS OF BIRDS IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. PART 5. PASSERIFORMES: ALAUDIDAE, HIRUNDINIDAE, MOTACILLIDAE, CAMPEPHAGIDAE, PYCNONOTIDAE, IRENIDAE, LANIIDAE, VANGIDAE, BOMBYCILLIDAE, DULIDAE, CINCLIDAE, TROGLODYTIDAE, AND MIMIDAE, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 278 (278), pp. 1-156 : 9

[ Mirafra longonotensis van Someren ]

AMNH 556814 has been considered the type of this taxon, but this appears to have been an error. In the original description, van Someren (1919b: 57) said that the type was in the Rothschild Collection, an adult male collected at Naivasha on 7 June 1918. This is, indeed, the information on the Rothschild type label, written in van Someren’s hand. However, it appears that the label was tied on the wrong specimen, for the original label data identify the specimen as an adult male collected on the Loita Plains on 10 July 1918 by A. Blayney Percival for van Someren. When Hartert (1928: 201) listed the type of this taxon, he gave the original label data correctly, without comment about the discrepancy, but remarked: ‘‘The description as a dark form fits the seven worn specimens collected by Doherty (cf. Nov. Zool. 1922, p. 178) but the bird marked as the type, from Loita, is very much lighter, and agrees with one from Somaliland, collected by Archer. This form requires further study, also its relationship to the very reddish alopex!’’

Van Someren (1919b: 58) stated that he had nine specimens and that there were seven additional ones in the Rothschild Collection. He gave the range as ‘‘the Loita Plains and the open plateau in Naivasha and Nakuru Districts’’. AMNH 556814, the Loita Plains specimen listed above, and AMNH 556815, a male from Naivasha collected on 13 February 1919, are paratypes. There are nine Doherty specimens in AMNH from the Rothschild Collection, but two of these are not fully adult. The seven adult specimens referred to by van Someren and Hartert, AMNH 556778– 556782, 556784, and 556785, all from ‘‘Escarpment, B[ritish] E[ast] A[frica]’’, are also paratypes. (For a description of this locality, see Mirafra africana dohertyi .) FMNH has three male specimens collected at Naivasha in February 1919 (David Willard, personal commun.) and RMCA has one collected at Loita on 12 July 1918 ( Louette et al., 2002: 27); these four specimens are also paratypes.

Hartert noted (in van Someren, 1922: 3) that ‘‘6,490 specimens of the 15,000 on which this treatise is based are now in the Tring [= Rothschild] Museum, including nearly all the types. The rest has, for the time being, been taken back to Nairobi by Dr. van Someren.’’ Apparently, after the type label had been tied on the wrong specimen, the actual holotype was included in the part of the collection that went back to Nairobi. This part of the collection has been widely scattered and the holotype and two of the paratypes of this taxon remain to be found.