birding-aus

RE: birding-aus Schodde & Mason,1999

To: "" <>
Subject: RE: birding-aus Schodde & Mason,1999
From: Paul van Gasse <>
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 22:22:26 +0100
John,
About Sphecotheres vieilloti cucullatus, Coates & Bishop do mention specific 
islands - Kai Besar and Kai Kecil.
This is what White & Bruce had to say about it: 'Kai birds (wing in male 
144-159 mm) average longer bills than Australian birds and the underside 
averages deeper yellow; but recognition of von Rosenberg's (1867:143) 
cucullatus, based on Kai birds, is not justified.' However, they further note 
that Mees (1980) noted that cucullatus may be recognized by having a deeper 
bill.
BTW, cucullatus was also recognized in Peters.

Paul Van Gasse
Kruibeke, Belgium


-----Original Message-----
From:   John Penhallurick [SMTP:
Sent:   Monday, December 06, 1999 4:00 AM
To:     
Subject:        birding-aus Schodde & Mason,1999

I have been combing through Schodde & Mason's 1999 A Directory of
Australian Birds.Passerines to get updates into my data base.  It is a very
impressive piece of work.  Top marks to Dick and Ian.  I notice that very
often they use the form of argument: "if you split D from A, then you must
also split B and C, which are as different from A as D is."  I see this as
going against the Biological Species Concept, which I repeat, has
absolutely nothing useful to say about allopatric taxa.
I have a couple of specific observations:
They unite the northern Australian forms of Myiagra alecto from Arnhem land
W.to King Sound in the Kimberley region as M.a.melvillensis
from Monarcha alecto melvillensis Mathews,1912,Austral Avian
Record,1,p.142. (Melville island, Northern Territory).
They reject,correctly, Mayr's attempt to group the Aru Islands form with
the Arnhem land form.
But they appear to overlook Myiagra rubecula melvillensis Mathews,1912,
which precedes Monarcha alecto melvillensis.  Thus I believe that
melvillensis Mathews,1912 is preoccupied, and that the correct name for the
NT and nWA form would be Myiagra alecto tormenti
from Monarcha alicto [sic] tormenti Mathews,1912,Austral Avian
record,1,p.91. (Point Torment, northwestern Australia)

I am also a bit puzzled about the form Sphecotheres vieilloti cucullatus,
which Coates & Bishop,Guide to the Birds of Wallacea,p.414 list for
sMoluccas (though, unusually, they don't list any specific islands.
This derives from Picnoramphus cucullata Rosenberg,1866.  Schodde and Mason
don't mention this at all, although they do refer to other extralimital
forms in the Kai Is and New Guinea.  Also odd is that Mathews,1930,Systema
Avium Australasianarum,2,doesn't mention cucullata Rosenberg under any
subspecies except in relation to it being the type of Picnoramphus
Rosenberg, a junior synonym of Sphecotheres.
Can anyone shed any light on cucullatus?
John Penhallurick
Associate Professor John M. Penhallurick<>
Canberra, Australia
Phone BH( 61 2) 6201 2346   AH (61 2) 62585428
FAX (61 2) 6258 0426
Snail Mail  Faculty of Communication
            University of Canberra,A.C.T.2601, AUSTRALIA 
OR          PO Box 3469, BMDC, BELCONNEN, ACT 2617, AUSTRALIA

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"Vivat,crescat,floreat Ornithologia" Hartert,Vog.pal.Fauna,p.2016.
"The market where possible,the state where necessary"(Margaret Thatcher)
"Sunt lacrimae rerum." Virgil, Aeneid,i,462.
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