Sylvia semirufa Hemprich & Ehrenberg

Mlíkovský, Jiří & Frahnert, Sylke, 2011, Type specimens and type localities of birds collected during the Hemprich and Ehrenberg expedition to Lebanon in 1824, Zootaxa 2990, pp. 1-29 : 11-13

Sylvia semirufa Hemprich & Ehrenberg

Sylvia semirufa Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833: 53 .

Now. Phoenicurus ochruros semirufus ( Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833) . See Hartert (1910: 723).

Type series. Hemprich and Ehrenberg (1833: 53) described the type series upon which they based their S. semirufa as follows: “Duodecim specimina congessimus, aegyptiacum unum, reliqua omnia in monte Libano Syriae. Mares adultos 3, adolescentem distinctum 1, reliquos adolescentes sexu dubios habuimus, feminas suspicabamur eas, quibus color iuvenilis, sed alae non limbatae sunt.” (“We assembled 12 specimens, one in Egypt, all others in Jabal Lubnān in Syria [= Lebanon]. 3 adult males, 1 juvenile male [of certain sex], all other juveniles we have are of uncertain sex, being possibly females, which are juvenile-colored, but with wings [= primaries] not fringed.”). These 12 specimens thus constitute the type series of this form. Lichtenstein (1825) listed five adults (his Nr. 98–102, males only) and seven juveniles (his Nr. 109–115) as originating from “ Syria ” and originally labeled as S. alpina by Hemprich, probably incorrectly listing “ Syria ” instead of “ Egypt ” for one of them.

The number of syntypes at ZMB diminished over time. Lichtenstein (1854: 28) listed nine specimens of Ruticilla semirufa from “ Syrien ” (and none from Egypt). The Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB (from c. 1857) lists probably the same nine specimens of this species, eight from “ Syria ” and one from “ Aegypten ”, so Egypt seems to have been omitted from Lichtenstein’s (1854) catalogue as a country of origin of this species. Dresser and Blanford (1874: 339) found in ZMB in September 1873 eight specimens from “ Syria ” and one from Egypt, i.e. probably the same specimens that were present in ZMB in the 1850s. Mauersberger (1987: 173) found in the 1980s only three specimens from “ Syria ” and one from “ Egypt ” (reasoning that the “Egyptian” bird is a mislabeled “Syrian” specimen). We found in December 2007 five “Syrian” and one “Egyptian” specimen (but see below for its identity), i.e. we located in ZMB two more syntypes than Mauersberger (1987) did.

Lectotype (designated by Mauersberger 1987: 173): ZMB 3846, skin, ad. 3, collected collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” [= Bcharré, Lebanon] (see below). This specimen was labeled by Reichenow (see Mauersberger 1987: 172) as ZMB 3844. Mauersberger (1987: 172–173) correctly observed that the specimen is an adult male and reasoned that it must have originated from Lebanon, because Hemprich and Ehrenberg supplied from Egypt only a juvenile bird (see below under ZMB 3844). Mauersberger (1987) concluded that the specimen has been mislabeled (by Reichenow or by an earlier worker) and that the specimen must be ZMB 3846, which is the only adult male of this species from Hemprich and Ehrenberg’s “Syrian” collection registered in the Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB. Mauersberger’s entry on the back of a label attached to the specimen reads in German: “Fundort ofb. falsch! Libanon-Geb. Sommer 1824” (“The locality apparently incorrect! Lebanon Mts. Summer 1824”).

Paralectotype: ZMB 3847, skin, juv. 3, collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Libanon ” (label) [= Bcharré, Lebanon].

Paralectotype: ZMB 3848, skin, Ƥ, collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” (label) [= Bcharré, Lebanon].

Paralectotype: ZMB 3850, skin, juv., collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” (label) [= Bcharré, Lebanon]. This specimen was unknown to Mauersberger (1987).

Paralectotype: ZMB 3851, skin, unsexed [= female-plumaged bird], collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” (label) [= Bcharré, Lebanon].

Paralectotype: ZMB 3852, skin, juv., collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” (label) [= Bcharré, Lebanon]. This specimen was unknown to Mauersberger (1987).

Paralectotype (lost): ZMB 3844, collected in “ Aegypten ” (Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB). Mauersberger (1987) traced in respective receipt lists (see Stresemann 1954: 170–171) that Hemprich and Ehrenberg supplied from Egypt only a single Black Redstart, a juvenile collected in November 1820 at “Bir Haje”. Bir Haie (= Snake Well in Arabian; spelling follows Ehrenberg 1828: 131–133) is an unidentified place near Qaţţārah (ca. 30.20°N, 27.22°E), where the bird was collected probably on 30 November 1820 (see Ehrenberg 1828: 132). Mauersberger (1987: 172) reasoned that this specimen does not belong to the type series of S. semirufa , because it was listed by Lichtenstein (1821) originally as “ Sylvia Tithys Juv. ”, which he later crossed out and replaced with “ S. phoenicurus Juv. ”. However, Hemprich and Ehrenberg (1833: 53) listed “ Sylvia Tithys Nubiae ” Licht. in the synonymy of their S. semirufa , which indicates that Ehrenberg (Hemprich was already dead at that time) included in the type series of S. semirufa one or more specimens from Nubia (?!), identified by Lichtenstein (on labels?) as S. Tithys. As ZMB 3844 is the only Egyptian specimen, it probably belongs to the type series as well.

Paralectotype (lost): ZMB 3845, 3 (age not given), collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” (Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB) [= Bcharré, Lebanon].

Paralectotype (lost): ZMB 3849, juv., collected on an unknown date [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” (Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB) [= Bcharré, Lebanon].

Type locality. Sylvia semirufa was described by Hemprich and Ehrenberg (1833: 53) from Egypt and “ Syria ” [= northern Lebanon] in a chapter on Egyptian birds. Hartert (1910: 723) consequently listed “ Agypten ” [sic] as the type locality of this species, stating that it lives in “Gebirge Syriens und Palästina, Euphrat-Tal”, i.e. mainly in the Levant, and that it occurs in Egypt on migration. The type locality was corrected to “ Syria ” [= Lebanon] by Stresemann (1954: 175, see also Stresemann 1962), and this designation was accepted by subsequent authors (e.g. Vaurie 1959b: 363, Ripley 1964: 75). Mauersberger’s (1987) selection of a lectotype for S. semirufa restricted the type locality to Lebanon between Beirut, Baalbek and Tripoli, where the type specimen was collected during 18 May–6 August 1824. Stresemann (1962: 387) suggested that type specimens originated “höchstwahrscheinlich von der alpinen Zone des Libanon ” (“most probably from the alpine zone of Jabal Lubnān ”), which is supported by the data on the occurence of Phoenicurus phoenicurus in Lebanon ( Kumerloeve 1962, Benson 1970, Ramadan-Jaradi & Ramadan-Jaradi 1999). Hemprich and Ehrenberg thus could have collected a series of these redstarts only at Bcharré, where they worked on 5–24 July 1824. We thus restrict the type locality of Sylvia semirufa to Bcharré, Lebanon. Mauersberger (1987: 173) fixed the type locality at “Zedern unweit Bischerre” (“cedars near Bcharré”). Such an action is invalid according to the ICZN (1999, Art. 76.2), because the type locality of a species is the site where the lectotype was collected.

Remarks. Black Redstarts were collected by Hemprich and Ehrenberg in Lebanon during the breeding season, which indicates that all these specimens belonged to the local population. However, all Black Redstarts that migrate through Egypt belong to the European subspecies Phoenicurus ochruros gibraltariensis (J. F. Gmelin, 1789) ( Goodman & Meininger 1989: 386) . The lost specimen from Egypt thus probably belonged to the latter subspecies. The type series thus probably consisted of 11 P. o. semirufus from Lebanon and one P. o. gibraltariensis from Egypt. The lectotypification of a Lebanese specimen by Mauersberger (1987) fixed the taxonomic meaning of S. semirufa .