Colluricincla parvula subsp. alligator Mathews

Colluricincla parvula alligator Mathews

Colluricincla parvula alligator Mathews, 1912b: 46 (Alligator River).

Now Colluricincla megarhyncha parvula Gould, 1845. See Ford, 1979, Schodde and Mason, 1999: 454–457, and Boles, 2007: 431.

HOLOTYPE: AMNH 656891, adult male, collected at Kapalga (5 Koparlgoo, as on label), South Alligator River, 12.15S, 132.24E (USBGN, 1957), Northern Territory, Australia, on 5 October 1903, by J.T. Tunney (no. 1575). From the Mathews Collection (no. 4218) via the Rothschild Collection.

COMMENTS: Mathews cited his catalog number of the holotype in the original description and gave the range of alligator as western Northern Territory. According to his catalog, he originally acquired the type specimen from the Rothschild Collection and cataloged it on 28 February 1910; Mathews apparently removed the original Rothschild label, as the only Rothschild label now on the specimen is printed ‘‘ Ex. coll. G.M. Mathews.’’ The name was published on 2 April 1912. Mathews (1912b: 25) mentioned that he had recently received specimens collected by Dahl in Northern Territory. These specimens had been sent on loan to him by Prof. Collett in Oslo, and were later acquired by Mathews; they were cataloged by Mathews on 25 February 1912 and are paratypes: Daly River, AMNH 656885 (Mathews no. 11002), male, 13 August 1894, AMNH 656886 (11003), male, 15 August 1894, AMNH 656887 (11004), female, 27 July 1894; Katherine River, AMNH 656888 (11005), male, 10 July 1895. A second Tunney specimen (no. 1603), female, collected on the South Alligator River on 26 September 1903 was probably also acquired by Mathews from Rothschild, but I did not find it in Mathews’ catalog; I consider it a probable paratype, AMNH 656894. AMNH 656884, male, collected on Anson Bay in 1910, was acquired from Ashby and not cataloged until 16 July 1912 (no. 12620), after the publication of the name; I do not consider it a paratype. Ashby had written ‘‘ Return’ ’ on his label, but for some reason Mathews never did. Melville Island specimens are not paratypes.

Storr (1966: 64) noted that from 5 to 10 October 1903, Tunney collected in monsoon forest at Koparlgoo, ‘‘a former pastoral lease between the West and South Alligator Rivers extending from the coast to 32 miles inland.’’ CSIRO had a research station on this property from the mid 1970s until the 1990s, and it is now part of Kakadu National Park and is known as Kapalga (R. Schodde, personal commun.).