Perameles moresbyensis Ramsay, 1877a

Parnaby, Harry & Gill, Anthony C., 2021, Mammal type specimens in the Macleay Collections, University of Sydney, Zootaxa 4975 (2), pp. 201-252 : 217-219

Perameles moresbyensis Ramsay, 1877a

Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. (ser. 1) 2 (1), 14. (July 1877).

Description read at the 29th January 1877 meeting of the LSNSW.

Current name. Papuan Brown Bandicoot Isoodon macrourus moresbyensis (Ramsay, 1877) , following Jackson & Groves (2015).

Taxonomic status. Often viewed as a subspecies of Isoodon macrourus but further research is necessary to resolve the status of the subspecies of I. macrourus ( Jackson & Groves 2015) . The validity of this entity has remained in doubt since its publication. Although accepted as a full species in the decades immediately following publication of the description, since the early 20th century taxonomists have remained divided as to whether it is a subspecies or not a valid form.

Type locality. No locality given in the original account. Cited in the taxonomic literature as the Port Moresby district, probably because Ramsay used the vernacular “ Port Moresby Bandicoot” in his original account and specific epithet .

Material. M.474, (possible syntype) male, skin mount on stand, skull in situ. An old loose paper tag states: “ Perameles moresbyensis, Rams. Port Moresby ♂ ”. A subadult skull with associated label of “temp M.474” has been mistakenly matched with the skin, given that the skull is in situ. That skull is possibly male based on large canines, and is I. macrourus , but the subspecies has not been determined ( Dr Kenny Travouillon , Western Australian Museum, pers. comm. 2016), i.e. it is not yet clear if the skull was from Papua New Guinea or Australia. M.475, (likely syntype) adult female, skull with study skin missing tail tip, associated Masters label reads “ Perameles Moresbyensis Ramsay Port Moresby” .

Comments. A holotype has usually been assumed in the taxonomic literature and the prospect of a type series has not been discussed. An adult male in the AM (M.2554) is usually cited as Ramsay’s “type” (e.g., Thomas 1888; Lyne & Mort 1981) but is considered a syntype by Parnaby et al. (2017).

Ramsay very likely based his description on several specimens, although his account does not reveal the number, sex, or the collections in which they were lodged. Three considerations imply a type series. First, his description of ear colour states “... the ears brown (in one yellow)” [his emphasis]. This implies that he examined several specimens, or less likely, that one ear was brown, the other yellow. Second, his statement “The animal examined is full grown, but young...” contrasts with AM M.2554, which is an old animal (see Parnaby et al. 2017). His statement “the animal examined” is not necessarily inconsistent with a type series if he had selected one specimen for detailed description. Third, the skull of AM M.2554 was not extracted until the 1980s, yet Ramsay appears to have examined a skull. Although he did not describe the skull and his dental measurements could have been made with the skull in situ, his remark that the fourth molars are fully erupted could not have been made without an extracted skull.

Possible type material of this taxon in the MAMU has been overlooked, probably because collector and collection date have not been recorded for any of the relevant specimens. The MAMU 1890s Catalogue lists only three specimens under “ Perameles moresbyensis ”: an adult male and female listed as “stuffed” and an adult female “skin”, the latter perhaps a flat skin. Skulls are not listed nor are alcohol specimens. Skulls were usually not listed separately in the Catalogue unless the specimen consisted of a skull only. Currently there are two dry skins in the Collection , along with four specimens in alcohol (M.896–M.899). Although all four alcoholic skins are marked “Port Moresby” in the original entries to the 1960s Mammal Register , locality attribution of associated skulls requires verification due to possible incorrect association of I. macrourus skulls from northern Australian. Reliable diagnostic cranial or dental characters that discriminate I. macrourus from Australia and Papua New Guinea have not yet been defined ( Dr Kenny Travouillon , pers. comm. 2016). While it is possible that the 1890s Catalogue had overlooked the four alcohol specimens, the data and skulls might be mis-match to all four, and two of the specimens were registered twice .

The one specimen for which Ramsay gave external measurements is a close approximation with skin MAMU M.475. We were able to measure eight of the 14 measurements given by Ramsay, five of which are comparable to his, see Table 3 . The main discrepancy is “tip of nose to anterior margin of the eye”, which is c. 1.6 inches (40.6 mm) vs. Ramsay’s measurement of 1.7 inches (43.2 mm), a distance that falls nearly to the centre of the eye in M.475. Distortion or subsequent shrinkage of the skin might account for this discrepancy. Body length was not given by Ramsay but can be derived from other measurements in Table 3 , which indicates that linear body length of M.475 (c. 11.5 inches) also approximates the specimen measured by Ramsay (11.5 inches). Consequently there are no major inconsistencies in the measurements that would exclude this skin as possibly being the one examined by Ramsay. Measurements of male skin mount M.474 are larger than Ramsay’s, e.g., nose tip to tail tip measured in inches is c. 18 (45.7 cm) vs. 16.5 (41.9 cm); tail length is c. 6 (15.2 cm) vs. 5 (12.7 cm), and hindfoot length c. 3 (76.2 mm) vs. 2.5 (63.5 mm).

As previously indicated, the main obstacle to identifying syntypes in the MAMU is that collector and collection date are not recorded for any of the New Guinea specimens of this taxon. Some of these could have been purchased from Goldie or his associated collectors during 1877–1882, after publication of the account. However, it is likely that several specimens were collected by Petterd and Broadbent and sold to Macleay in 1876, prior to the 29th January 1877 meeting of the LSNSW at which Ramsay read his description. In his paper on mammals of the Chevert Expedition, Ramsay named several species using material from Macleay’s Collection that were almost certainly obtained after the Chevert Expedition, given that the Expedition did not reach Port Moresby ( Macleay 1875a; Fulton 2016a). Several members of the Expedition (including Petterd and Broadbent) left the Chevert in August 1875 and joined Andrew Goldie to collect in the region of Port Moresby (see Fulton 2017; 2018). Petterd and Broadbent returned to Australia in 1876 and Macleay noted in his private journal for 7th March 1876 “Pettard and Broadbent visited this morning……Stone purchased all of their birds, I purchased all the mammals they had” ( Horning 1994). This would surely be the origin of some of the type specimens of Perameles moresbyensis .

The collecting localities of the specimens examined by Ramsay remain unclear. One possibility is that only specimens from the Port Moresby district were used in the description, on the assumption that Ramsay would have listed Hall Sound and Yule Island because he recognised them as separate localities. The absence of basic information in the description suggests that it is equally likely that Ramsay applied the term “ Port Moresby bandicoot” but simply neglected to list the localities of any type specimens. If so, type material could have included Hall Sound. It is not known if bandicoots were collected during the Chevert Expedition. In his ad lib account of the Expedition written before the return of the collections to Sydney on the Chevert, Macleay (1875b) mentioned that a species of Perameles was encountered but whether any were collected is unclear. Given that Perameles was the only genus of New Guinean bandicoots then recognised, his statement could apply to any of the four bandicoot genera that are now recognised from the lowlands of southern Papua New Guinea ( Flannery 1995).

It appears that the type series included at least one specimen collected by Andrew Goldie that made its way into the AM, probably via Ramsay’s private collection. Parnaby et al. (2017) did not justify their recognition of the AM specimen as a syntype and the AM material is discussed further in the interests of defining the syntype series of this taxon. A mature male skin mount with extracted skull in the AM (M.2554) believed to be a syntype is an old animal with worn teeth and thus not the specimen that was the primary focus of Ramsay’ description, which he states was a young animal (see Parnaby et al. 2017). The collector of M.2554 was not recorded in the original M register entry made in 1915, which states: “ Perameles moresbyensis, Ramsay. Type. from old collection.” An old pencil annotation indicates skin with skull inside. It is possible that AM M.2554 is the one obtained from Andrew Goldie. In a paper read at the 27 December 1876 meeting of the LSNSW, Ramsay (1877b) described a collection of birds and mammals recently obtained from the Port Moresby area by Goldie. In that paper, Ramsay has a line entry “ Perameles sp. ? Perameles Novae-Guineae ”, without further comment and without indicating the number of specimens. This most likely refers to material that he later described as P. moresbyensis at the January 1877 meeting of the LSNSW, his account of Chevert mammals. The only other bandicoot that he named from the New Guinea mainland ( Perameles broadbenti Ramsay, 1879 ) was based on a specimen obtained after that meeting. Ramsay (1877b) stated that he examined Goldie’s entire New Guinea collection. We have not established whether he purchased material of P. moresbyensis for the AM or his private collection. A purchase slip might exist in AM Archives but in case one is not found, the provenance of M.2554 is discussed further. Three new mammals described by Ramsay in 1876 are listed under their published names as “ sp. nov. ” in the AM annual report for the year ending 31st December 1876 ( Ramsay 1877c) but P. moresbyensis is not listed in the AM annual reports for 1876 or 1877. This might have been an oversight but the annual reports often did not detail purchased specimens. Regardless of whether Ramsay had purchased material of P. moresbyensis for his private collection, a specimen was in the AM Collection after Ramsay retired. AM M.2554 was registered in March 1915 and listed as being from the “old collection”. Birds purchased from the Ramsay family Dobroyde Collection in 1898 were registered at the AM in 1912 and it is not clear whether the unregistered bandicoot found in the Mammal Collection was incorrectly assumed to be an unregistered specimen from the old collection, but instead arrived with the Dobroyde purchase.