Euphysetes macleayi Krefft 1866

Euphysetes macleayi Krefft, 1866a

Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1865: 708, figs 1–6. (24 April 1866).

Common name. Pygmy Sperm Whale.

Current name. Kogia breviceps (de Blainville, 1838), following Jackson & Groves (2015).

Holotype. Not determined, possibly skeleton PA.366. A detailed investigation is required to establish whether Krefft’s original material is amongst Kogia material currently in the AM Collection. Krefft’s original specimen was a male, skull and skeleton (Krefft, 1866a), and stuffed skin (Krefft, 1873b). The animal was obtained from a Mr Skinner on 13 August 1865 (Krefft, 1865c) and purchased by Krefft (Krefft, 1873b).

Type locality. Manly Beach, Sydney, NSW (Krefft, 1866a).

Comments. Krefft based his description on a “colt whale” stranded at Manly beach, which he initially examined and photographed as an intact beach stranding in 1865. His detailed account is clearly based on a single specimen and it was in the AM Collection in 1873 (Krefft, 1873b).

The current identity of Krefft’s original specimen amongst the AM Kogia material has remained in doubt following Krefft’s dismissal from the AM in 1874. Assuming that Krefft’s specimen was registered by Palmer, the only entry with matching data would seem to be PA.365 (skin, not found) and PA.366 (skeleton). Prior to this study, PA.366 was suspected for more than a century to be Krefft’s type. However, the donor of PA.366 is given as “Hon. W. Macleay” in Palmer’s hand in the P Register, and Palmer did not indicate that PA.366 was a type, whereas he did indicate type status for PA.368, the holotype of Euphysetes grayii Wall, 1851. One possibility is that Krefft’s specimen was not registered by Palmer, given that Palmer was dismissed before completing the backlog of unregistered material. Further, it is not known if Krefft’s type left the AM prior to his dismissal in 1874. Confusion is compounded by uncertainty as to which skull in the Collection is PA.366. Bannister (1988a) cited registration numbers for the holotype as “ P365, 366, 367 and 369 skeleton from Manly Beach” but it is possible that these numbers refer to several different individuals. We suspect that the modern paper tag labelled PA.366 was attached to the unmarked skull in the 1960s to 1980s. Krefft did not provide skull measurements in his original account to enable comparisons with the skull labelled PA.366, but he did provide woodcuts depicting three views of the skull and dentaries. According to Schulte (1917), Krefft’s specimen is illustrated in plate xxii, fig. 8 of Van Beneden & Gervais (1880), based on photographs sent by Krefft to the Paris Exhibition of 1867. Skull shape of the specimen currently labelled PA.366 is inconsistent with illustrations in both the original account and in the account of Van Beneden & Gervais (1880), assuming that those depictions are accurate.