Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 9. Passeriformes: Zosteropidae And Meliphagidae
Author
Mary
Division of Vertebrate Zoology (Ornithology) American Museum of Natural History
text
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
2011
2011-04-29
2011
348
1
193
journal article
0003-0090
Myzomela cruentata lavongai
Salomonsen
Myzomela cruentata lavongai
Salomonsen, 1966b: 122
(New Hanover (
5
Lavongai)).
Now
Myzomela cruentata lavongai
Salomonsen, 1966
. See
Hartert, 1924b: 210
,
Mayr, 1955: 43
,
Mayr and Diamond, 2001: 397
, and
Higgins et al., 2008: 639
.
HOLOTYPE
:
AMNH 693102
, female [Salomonsen considered this a juvenile], collected on
New Hanover Island
,
02.35S
,
150.10E
(PNG, 1984),
New Ireland Province
,
Papua New Guinea
, on
6 February 1923
, by
Albert F. Eichhorn
(no. 8119).
From
the
Rothschild Collection.
COMMENTS: Salomonsen cited the AMNH number of the
holotype
in the original description and noted that he had
five adult
males,
one juvenile
male, and
two juvenile
females (one of them his type). He based his identification of the females as juveniles on his belief that the adult females of his
erythrina
group (subspecies
erythrina
from
New Ireland
,
lavongai
from New Hanover,
cantans
from Tabar, and
vinacea
from Dyaul) were similar to adult males but duller (
Salomonsen, 1966b: 120
). This is based on two birds sexed as females by Salomonsen but similar to males in plumage, one from
New Ireland
and one from Dyaul Island (
Salomonsen, 1966b: 121
, 122). I think that this needs to be reexamined with fresh material, as does the validity of
lavongai
. The specimens in Salomonsen’s type series of
lavongai
are the same New Hanover specimens that were part of Mayr’s type series of
cantans
(see below). I list Salomonsen’s
paratypes
as they were sexed by Eichhorn:
AMNH 693095–693098
, males;
AMNH 693099
, immature male;
AMNH 693100
, female [Salomonsen considered this a juvenile];
AMNH 693101
, male;
AMNH 693103, 693104
, unsexed. The unsexed birds were not mentioned by Salomonsen, but were available to him.
Hartert (1924b)
does not say exactly where on New Hanover Eichhorn collected. Lavongai was a plantation on New Hanover but I find no evidence that it was ever used as a name for the entire island.