Zosterops minor rothschildi Stresemann and Paludan

Mary, 2011, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (348), pp. 1-193 : 17

Zosterops minor rothschildi Stresemann and Paludan

Zosterops minor rothschildi Stresemann and Paludan (in Stresemann et al.), 1934: 44 (Mt. Derimapa, Gebroeders).

Now considered an intergrade between Zosterops minor minor and Z. m. chrysolaemus. See Mees, 1961a: 81–82, 1969: 282, Dickinson, 2003: 627, and van Balen, 2008: 457.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 303041 , adult female, collected on Mount Derimapa , 5000 ft, Gebroeders Range , 03.39S, 135.56E (US- BGN, 1982a), Kobowre (5 Weyland) Mountains, Papua Province, Indonesia, on 29 June 1930, by Fred Shaw Mayer (no. 86).

COMMENTS: Shaw Mayer collected the single specimen; his expedition was jointly sponsored by L.C. Sanford for AMNH and Rothschild, and the specimens were divided between the two collections. This specimen came directly to AMNH, the label stamped with an ‘‘S’’ within a circle indicating Sanford’s share. It had been seen to differ and was listed as Zosterops minor subsp? by Rothschild (1931: 259), who refrained from naming it on the basis of a single specimen. It was not collected by Stein ( Hartert et al., 1936) in the Weyland Mountains and the specimen remains unique. The subspecies was recognized as valid by Dickinson (2003: 627). Mees (1961a: 81, 1969: 282) raised the possibility that the specimen might represent intergradation between Zosterops atrifrons minor and Z. a. chrysolaemus, and van Balen (2008: 457) agreed with this, although he put both subspecies in the species Z. minor .