Macleayius australiensis Gray 1865

Macleayius australiensis Gray, 1865a

Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1864: 589, figs 1–2. (May 1865).

Common name. Southern Right Whale.

Current name. Eubalaena australis (Desmoulins, 1822), following (Perrin, 2009a).

Holotype. M.47763 by subsequent determination. A single bone mass consisting of fused atlas bone and cervical vertebrae 2 to 7, registered 26 October 2015.

Condition. Bone mass is in good condition.

Type locality. “Australian seas” Krefft, cited in Gray (1873a: 134).

Comments. Gray (1865a) erected Macleayius as a monotypic genus based on photographs sent to him by Krefft, of cervical vertebrae in the AM Collection. Gray initially misinterpreted the photography and letter from Krefft, and thought that the atlas bone was separate from the fused mass of 2nd to 7th cervical vertebrae. He later corrected this, based on clarification from Krefft (Gray, 1866a: 371). In his original account, Gray applied the name Macleayius australiensis beneath the figures. Gray (1873a) subsequently gave a species description of australiensis based on a specimen sent to the British Museum from New Zealand, but Gray (1865a) has precedence.An unnumbered specimen with fused cervical vertebrae located in the collection in 2013 is likely to be the holotype. It closely resembles the amended drawings of Gray (1866a: 372), which Gray stated are based on photographs sent by Krefft, and is a good match to measurements given by him (Gray, 1873a: 130). We have not yet located a registration number for the holotype in the old registers or specimen card index and it is possible that the specimen was never registered, or that a metal registration tag might have disintegrated, as observed for a number of other early cetacean specimens in the collection.