Zonaeginthus bellus rosinae Mathews

LeCroy, Mary, 2013, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 11. Passeriformes: Parulidae, Drepanididae, Vireonidae, Icteridae, Fringillinae, Carduelinae, Estrildidae, And Viduinae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2013 (381), pp. 1-155 : 99-100

[ Zonaeginthus bellus rosinae Mathews ]

Zonaeginthus bellus rosinae Mathews, 1923: 40 (South Australia).

Z. b. rosinae was one of the forms Mathews rushed to name prior to the publication of volume 12 of ‘‘Birds of Australia.’’ He gave supposed characters (‘‘Differs from Z. b. tasmanicus Mathews in its light coloration and in having the vermiculations on the upper-surface finer.’’) but no information that would aid in identifying a type. No further information concerning a type is provided by Mathews (1925: 164– 168), but he there quotes Mellor (p. 167) concerning South Australian birds he had seen: ‘‘the birds were somewhat different in appearance than the Tasmanian birds, being finer in the freckled appearance of the feathers and not so dark in coloration.’’ It is possible he based his description on Mellor’s observations.

The species is now included in the genus Stagonopleura ( Schodde and Mason, 1999: 741–742, 744–745). There are no mainland South Australian specimens from the Mathews Collection of S. bella in AMNH.