Pyromelana franciscana subsp. pusilla Hartert

Pyromelana franciscana pusilla Hartert Pyromelana franciscana pusilla Hartert, 1901c: 71 (Lake Stephanie). Now Euplectes franciscanus (Isert, 1789). See Zedlitz, 1916: 26–28; Hartert, 1919: 144; Moreau and Greenway, 1962: 67–68; Craig, 1993a: 87–88; Dickinson, 2003: 725; Fry and Keith, 2004: 215–217; Ash and Atkins, 2009: 343; and Craig, 2010: 143–144. HOLOTYPE: AMNH 726383, adult male, collected on 7 June 1895, at Chew Bahir swamp (= Lake Stephanie), 04.40N, 36.55E (Ash and Atkins, 2009: 406), Ethiopia, by A. Donaldson Smith (no. 655). From the Rothschild Collection. COMMENTS: The male specimen from Chew Bahir swamp was designated the type by Hartert in the original description. In addition, he included a female with eggs paired with the above male and a male from Barri, Ethiopia (= Central Somaliland) both collected by Donaldson Smith. Paratypes are, with Donaldson Smith’s field numbers in parentheses: Chew Bahir swamp, AMNH 726384 ( 654), female, 7 June 1895; Barri, AMNH 726384 (485), adult male, 11 January 1895. Hartert’s pusillus is often recognized as a subspecies of Euplectes orix, but as long ago as Zedlitz (1916: 27) the variation was believed to be individual, and recent molecular data have not supported treatment of franciscanus as a subspecies of E. orix (Craig, 2010: 143).Published as part of Lecroy, Mary, 2014, Type Specimens Of Birds In The American Museum Of Natural History Part 12. Passeriformes: Ploceidae, Sturnidae, Buphagidae, Oriolidae, Dicruridae, Callaeidae, Grallinidae, Corcoracidae, Artamidae, Cracticidae, Ptilonorhynchidae, Cnemophilidae, Paradisaeidae, And Corvidae, pp. 1-165 in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2014 (393) on pages 28-29, DOI: 10.1206/885.1, http://zenodo.org/record/462995