Karua leucomela mayi Ashby

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 : 71

Karua leucomela mayi Ashby

Karua leucomela mayi Ashby, 1914: 27 (Union Bore, near Pine Creek, Northern Territory).

Now Lalage tricolor (Swainson, 1825) . See Mayr, 1940b: 112, and Schodde and Mason, 1999: 590.

SYNTYPE: AMNH 564300, (female), collected at Union Bore, Pine Creek, 13°50′S, 131°50′E ( Storr, 1977: 112), Northern Territory, Australia, on 4 August 1914, by C.E. May for Edwin Ashby. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Ashby (1914: 27) stated that he had two males and one female; only the above specimen came to AMNH. The sex is enclosed in parentheses on the original label, and it is marked ‘‘type’’, but the specimen bears neither the Mathews nor the Rothschild type label. It was apparently never cataloged by Mathews, who cataloged few specimens in 1914 and none thereafter. Mayr (1940b: 112), whose handwriting appears on the AMNH type label, considered it to be an ‘‘adult female in particularly rufous plumage’’ and the taxon to be a synomym of tricolor . Ashby (1915: 72–73) had, in fact, already synonymized Karua leucomela mayi with ‘‘ Lalaga ’’ tricolor indistincta, stating that four additional specimens did not show the differences he had described.

The number ‘‘510b’’ that appears on the original label is the number of this taxon in Mathews’ (1908) ‘‘Handlist’’.

Blaylock (2000: 123) noted that Ashby had ‘‘previously arranged to give the S[outh] A[ustralian] Museum his large collection of bird skins but they were lost in the great fire [at his home] of 9 March 1934. Only the specimens already at the museum were saved... ’’. Condon (1976) did not include Karua leucomela mayi in his list of avian type specimens in the South Australian Museum, so the male syntypes are probably lost.