Rhinomyias insignis Ogilvie-Grant, 1895b: 40 (mountains of Lepanto in Northern Luzon).

Now Rhinomyias insignis Ogilvie-Grant, 1895. See Dickinson et al., 1991: 343.

SYNTYPES: AMNH 652772 (Whitehead no. A.61), adult male, 27 January 1895; AMNH 652773 (A.65), adult male, 28 January 1895 (now CMNH no. 35695); AMNH 652774 (A.26), adult female, 24 January 1895; and AMNH 652775 (A.27), adult female, 29 January 1895, all collected on Mount Data, 16.51N, 120.52E (Dickinson et al., 1991: 418), Mountain Province, northern Luzon Island, Philippines, by John Whitehead. From the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: In the original description, Ogilvie-Grant described both male and female but did not say how many specimens he examined or designate a type, nor did he (Ogilvie-Grant, 1895d: 442) add additional information. However, Whitehead (1899: 85) noted that he collected on Mt. Data for 30 days from 14 January 1895, and (Whitehead, 1899: 109) that he obtained six specimens of Rhinomyias insignis at nearly 8000 ft.

Hachisuka (1935: 331) noted that a male type collected on 29 January 1895 was in BMNH and a ‘‘co-type’’ was in AMNH, from the Rothschild Collection. Then on p. 332 he said: ‘‘ Four specimens, including the type, are in the Lord Rothschild collection’’. These conflicting statements do not constitute lectotype designation, and Warren and Harrison (1971: 260) listed two syntypes in BMNH. The four specimens that came to AMNH with the Rothschild Collection are the other four syntypes.

Vaurie (1952: 29) listed a male and a female specimen from Mt. Data as ‘‘the cotypes of insignis ’’, apparently basing this statement on the notation ‘‘ Co-type’ ’ on labels of AMNH 652772 and 652774; at some later time Vaurie marked these labels ‘‘ paratype is meant’’. These two specimens retain Whitehead’s original field label. The other two specimens have had the field label replaced by a printed Whitehead label that is not so marked. However, assuming that the entire Mt. Data collection was shipped to Ogilvie-Grant from Vigan (Whitehead, 1899: 85), Ogilvie-Grant would have had all six specimens of insignis when the description was written; thus, they are all syntypes.

In 1994, I made the mistaken assumption that the type series comprised only the two syntypes in BMNH because Ogilvie-Grant had not indicated in his original description that there was more than one male and one female, and only two specimens were listed by Warren and Harrison (1971: 260). This led me to conclude that the four AMNH specimens were topotypes. As a topotype, syntype AMNH 652773 was exchanged with CMNH in 1996 (see M. LeCroy correspondence with Robert Kennedy, 1994–1995) for a specimen of Rhinomyias goodfellowi, a species lacking at AMNH.