Weaver news

Type locality of the Baya Weaver

2018-12-09 (829)

Corrected type locality of the Baya Weaver
The Baya Weaver Ploceus philippinus was one of the first weaverbirds to be described, but Linnaeus (1766) gave the type locality as the Philippines. As the Baya Weaver does not occur there, Hartert (1902) restricted the locality to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and later Stresemann (1952) showed that the type was most probably collected by Pierre Poivre in India. Yet all major references still list Sri Lanka as the type locality. A new paper draw attention to this error and describes the details of the discovery of this species. Avian handbooks and taxonomic works should refer to the type locality of the Baya Weaver as Puducherry (previously Pondicherry), Puducherry district, India.

New paper:
Oschadleus HD. 2018. Type locality of the Baya Weaver Ploceus philippinus (Passeriformes, Ploceidae). ZooTaxa 4524(3): 395-396.

Read more about the discovery of the Baya Weaver.