Geospiza darwini Rothschild and Hartert

Geospiza darwini Rothschild and Hartert

Geospiza darwini Rothschild and Hartert, 1899: 158 (Culpepper Island, Galapagos).

Now Geospiza conirostris darwini Rothschild and Hartert, 1999. See Hellmayr, 1938: 130, Paynter, 1970b: 164, and Dickinson, 2003: 796.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 516980, adult male, collected on Darwin (5 Culpepper) Island, 01.39S, 92.00W (Paynter, 1993), Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, on 27 July 1897, by Rollo Beck on the Webster-Harris Expedition (no. 157). From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: No type was designated in the text of the original description, where measurements were given for four males and one female, but Beck’s specimen no. 157 is designated as the type of Geospiza darwini in the same publication on pl. VI, fig. 21, a drawing of the beak of the holotype. Reference to this plate is also written on the reverse of the Rothschild type label of AMNH 516980. Paratypes in AMNH, all collected on Darwin Island on the Webster-Harris Expedition in 1897, are: AMNH 516977, adult male, 26 July, by Harris; AMNH 516978, adult male, 26 July, by Hull; AMNH 516979, immature male, 27 July, by Drowne; AMNH 516785, adult male, 27 July, by Beck, the last three now identified as magnirostris. I think that Rothschild and Hartert considered the immature bird to be a female. The right wing of that specimen is missing feathers, but the measurement of the left wing is 84 mm, the measurement given for the female.