Phylidonyris pyrrhoptera subsp. mixta Mathews

Phylidonyris pyrrhoptera mixta Mathews

Phylidonyris pyrrhoptera mixta Mathews, 1923b: 38 (Victoria).

Now Phylidonyris pyrrhopterus pyrrhopterus (Latham, 1801). See Salomonson, 1967: 426, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 309–310, Christidis and Boles, 2008: 185–191, and Higgins et al., 2008: 666–667.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 692058 (Mathews no. 10351), male, collected at Beaconsfield, 38.03S, 145.22E (USBGN, 1957), on 11 June 1910, by F.E. Wilson (but cataloged by Mathews as from F.E. Howe); AMNH 692059, male, collected at Beaconsfield, on 11 June 1910, by L.G. Chandler; AMNH 692061, unsexed on original label, collected at Olinda, 37.51S, 145.22E (USBGN, 1957), undated, probably by T. Tregellas; AMNH 692063, male, collected at Selby, 37.55S, 145.23E (USBGN, 1957), on 10 April 1913, by T. Tregellas; AMNH 692070, male, collected at Lang Lang, 38.16S, 145.34E (USBGN, 1957), on 4 September 1908, by C.F. Cole; AMNH 692071 (Mathews no. 6273, entered as male), sexed as female, male plumage, collected at Lang Lang on 13 April 1908, received from F.E. Howe; AMNH 692072, sexed as female, male plumage, collected at Warburton, 37.45S, 145.41E (USBGN, 1957), in June 1903, collector?. All syntypes were from Victoria, Australia, and from the Mathews Collection via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews off-hand description of mixta makes it extremely difficult to determine which specimens he referred to when he listed the ‘‘ Type’ ’ as ‘‘ Victoria.’’ The description applies to adult males: ‘‘ Differs from P. p. indistincta Mathews in being brighter in coloration (blacker) and the yellow of the wing more pronounced.’’ I have considered as syntypes those specimens from Victoria in Mathews’ collection that are in adult male plumage. Mathews’ catalog entry for the specimen that is now AMNH 692071 shows that Mathews considered that specimen a male, based on plumage; it is also a paratype of Meliornis pyrrhoptera indistincta (see below). The Rothschild label of AMNH 692061 is marked ‘‘Figured.’’ It was the model for Mathews (1925a: pl. 543, middle figure, opp. p. 6, text p. 7) and served as the basis for the description of an adult male, but without any indication of type status; it had been unsexed on the original label, sexed as female on the Rothschild label, and is in male plumage! I did not find it in Mathews’ catalog, but it would have been in his collection by the time mixta was published in 1923, as the Mathews Collection was virtually complete by then.

AMNH 692060 (Mathews no. 4970), immature male, collected at Olinda on 1 February 1909, by Chandler, has the label marked ‘‘described,’’ referring to Mathews (1925a: 8, description of the second immature male). It has no type standing. For use of 1801 as the publication date of Latham’s Supplementum Indicis Ornithologici, see Schodde et al. (2010).