Phylloscopus sibilatrix erlangeri Hartert

LeCroy, M., 2008, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History. Part 7. Passeriformes: Sylviidae, Muscicapidae, Platysteiridae, Maluridae, Acanthizidae, Monarchidae, Rhipiduridae, And Petroicidae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 313 (1), pp. 1-287 : 59-60

[ Phylloscopus sibilatrix erlangeri Hartert ]

Hartert (1909: 516) provided Phylloscopus sibilatrix erlangeri as a nomen novum for Phylloscopus sibilatrix flavescens (Erlanger) and noted ( Hartert, 1909: 517) that ‘‘terra typica’’ for erlangeri was Oum R-Biah in Morocco. However, as a nomen novum, erlangeri would have had the same type(s) as flavescens . Erlanger (1899: 256) noted that he had a series of four specimens from Tunisia, thus being syntypes of both flavescens and erlangeri.

Hartert (1913: 49) noted that Phylloscopus sibilatrix erlangeri ‘‘is, perhaps, a doubtful race. In the first instance the late Carlo von Erlanger described it as P. s. flavescens , a preoccupied name, chiefly on the strength of an aberrant specimen, and I recognized it partly on account of the different song which it is supposed to have.’’ Later, Hartert (1920: 463) incorrectly listed as the type of Phylloscopus sibilatrix erlangeri a male, now AMNH 449995, from Orange Wood in the Mehuila, on the Dum-er-Rebia, east of Mazagan, West Morocco, collected on 8 April 1901 by Ernst Hartert (2 years after Erlanger described flavescens ). At the same time he said: ‘‘It is doubtful if this name is valid. I named these paler, more yellowish birds erlangeri, because there was already a Sylvia flavescens and Phyllopneuste flavescens of Gray, but there is no Phylloscopus flavescens . I am afraid, therefore, that I wrongly interpreted the Rules of Nomenclature, and that the name flavescens may be used.’’ Of course, the types of flavescens remained the four specimens that Erlanger had in his type series.

I do not consider that AMNH 449995 has any standing as a type ; it remains in the type collection because it bears a Rothschild type label, but another label has been added to explain its status.