Curruca orphea helena 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 : 14

Curruca orphea helena Hemprich & Ehrenberg

Curruca orphea var. Helena Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833: 55.

Now. Sylvia hortensis crassirostris Cretzschmar, 1827 . See Hartert (1909: 581).

Type series. “Specimina 3 adsunt, syriacum 1 capite nigro, arabica 2, capite cinereo” ( Hemprich & Ehrenberg 1833: 55). The form was thus based on three syntypes, a black-capped bird from “ Syria ” and two gray-capped birds from “Arabia”, all of which were registered in the Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB (see below). Lichtenstein (1825) listed sub Nr. 74 an unsexed S. orphea from “Bischerre Jul.”, sub Nr. 77 a black-capped (“pileo nigro”) S. orphea from an unknown locality, and sub Nr. 85 an unsexed S. hortensis from an unknown locality, which he later struck out and re-identified as a juvenile (“pullus”) S. cinerea . A comparison of the data in Lichtenstein (1825) with those in the Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB thus indicates that the syntype from “ Syria ” is the specimen ZMB 4144.

Syntype. ZMB 4145, mount, 3, collected in “Arabia” (Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB) [= Sinai Peninsula, Egypt].

Syntype. ZMB 4146, skin, unsexed, collected in “Arabia” (label) [= Sinai Peninsula, Egypt].

Syntype (lost): ZMB 4144, 3, collected in July ( Lichtenstein 1825) [= 5–24 July 1824] in “ Syrien ” (Inventory Catalogue of the ZMB) or at “Bischerre” ( Lichtenstein 1825) [= Bcharré, Lebanon].

Type locality. “ Syria ” and “Arabia” according to Hemprich and Ehrenberg (1833: 55). Knowing Hemprich and Ehrenberg’s itinerary, we restrict here the type locality to Bcharré, Lebanon, and to the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt.