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3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

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Descriptions of <strong>New</strong> Species and Subspecies of Birds 161<br />

Fig.4.10. Two sibling species of cuckooshrikes (Campephagidae), the Long-tailed Minivet<br />

(Pericrocotus ethologus, left) andtheShort-billedMinivet(P. brevirostris, right) whichare<br />

sympatric over a wide range from the Himalayas to western Yunnan. Ernst Mayr (1940e)<br />

discovered their distinctness as species. Illustrations of adult males from MacKinnon and<br />

Phillipps (2000)<br />

“Your data convinced me that I hadn’t noticed anything, which should not<br />

have happened! You are a tremendous fellow and have picked unfading laurel<br />

with this discovery. I could kick myself to have slept right through. <strong>The</strong> matter<br />

is crystal clear once it is understood. Schäfer collected in Sikkim 27 brevirostris<br />

and eight ethologus […], ethologus breeds at 2,750 m, brevirostris in the<br />

subtropical zone, between 560 and 1,900 m” (19 June 1940; transl.; see Haffer<br />

1997b: 517 and Stresemann, Ornithologische Monatsberichte 49 (1941): 9–10, footnote).<br />

Descriptions of <strong>New</strong> Species and Subspecies of Birds<br />

<strong>The</strong> collections which Mayr himself assembled in <strong>New</strong> Guinea and in the Solomon<br />

Islands as well as those from the Pacific Ocean, Malay Archipelago, southeastern<br />

Asia and other areas which he studied at the AMNH came from many remote<br />

and ornithologically poorly known regions of the world. <strong>The</strong>refore they contained<br />

an unusually large number of unnamed taxa of birds, new subspecies as well<br />

as new species, as I repeatedly mentioned above (Fig. 4.11). Among the total of<br />

471 new taxa which Mayr named between 1927 and 1960 (and two nomina nova<br />

in 1986) are 26 new species (the description of one additional species was barely<br />

anticipated by Japanese authors) and 445 subspecies. Every new form was carefully<br />

studied and compared before it was named. If he had any doubts he walked over<br />

to John Zimmer, an expert on subspecies differences, who sat only 20 steps away

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