Melithreptus validirostris kingi Mathews

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 : 116

Melithreptus validirostris kingi Mathews

Melithreptus validirostris kingi Mathews, 1915a: 131 (King Island, Bass Strait).

Now Melithreptus validirostris (Gould, 1837) . See Salomonsen, 1967: 398, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 278, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 673.

LECTOTYPE: AMNH 691586 , adult male, collected on King Island , 39.50S, 144.00E ( USBGN, 1957), Bass Strait, Tasmania, Australia, on 28 April 1914, by Thomas Tregellas. From the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Mathews only said that the type was from King Island, Bass Strait. Mathews had six specimens from King Island, collected by Tregellas in April 1914 ; they do not appear in Mathews’ catalog. AMNH 691586 bears a Rothschild type label with no name written on it but with a reference to the description of kingi. The Tregellas label is marked ‘‘ M. Kingi Type’ ’ by Mathews. It was cataloged as the type when the Rothschild Collection came to AMNH and has been so considered. In order to validate Mathews’ intent, I hereby designate AMNH 691586 the lectotype of M. validirostris kingi . The five paralectotypes, all

from King Island, are: AMNH 691585, male, 23 April; AMNH 691587, male, 22 April; AMNH 691588, male, 22 April; AMNH 691589, female, 24 April; AMNH 691590, female, 24 April. The number ‘‘740’’ that appears on all of the Tregellas labels refers to the number of this species in Mathews (1908). AMNH 691589 also bears a ‘‘Figured’’ label, indicating that it was illustrated in Mathews (1924: pl. 512, lower fig., opp. p. 256, text p. 269), where no type status is indicated.