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A NEW SPECIES OF SMOKY HONEYEATER (MELIPHAGIDAE: MELIPOTES) FROM WESTERN NEW GUINEA
Auk, The, Jul 2007 by Beehler, Bruce M, Prawiradilaga, Dewi M, de Fretes, Yance, Kemp, Neville
From 15 November through 9 December 2005, an international team organized by Conservation International (CI) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) carried out a 25-day-long Rapid Assessment (RAP) of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, butterflies, and plants in the western part of the Foja Mountains (Fig. 1). On 21 November 2005, the CI RAP team helicoptered into a highland peat bog, one of very few points of helicopter access to the interior of the Fojas. Within minutes of arrival at this site, members of the field team noticed a wattled honeyeater foraging unwarily in forest at the edge of the bog. It was notable for its red-orange facial skin and the pendant wattle that hangs down from each side of the face (Fig. 2). This bird represents a new species of smoky honeyeater (genus Melipotes), for which we propose the following name:
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Melipotes carolae, sp. nov.
Wattled Smoky Honeyeater
Holotype. - Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense (MZB), Cibinong, Indonesia, MZB number 30628, male (testis 4 × 6 mm), Bog Camp, Sarmi District, Papua Province, Indonesia, elevation 1,650 m, 2°34.5'S, 138°34.9'E, mist netted on 28 November 2005, prepared by B. M. Beehler, field catalogue number BBFM-54.
Diagnosis. - The new species is readily assignable to the genus Melipotes by the large circumorbital patch of bright facial skin, the overall sooty-gray plumage, and the short black bill. Each of the following four characters distinguishes M. carolae (Fig. 2A, C) from all congeners: (1) elaboration of the circumorbital skin patch into a soft, loose, and fleshy pendant wattle at the base of the jaw on each side of the face; (2) the deep red-orange (rather than orange-yellow) coloration of the facial skin patch; (3) the nonflushing condition of the circumorbital patch (see below); and (4) the dull gray throat patch, only slightly paler than adjacent upper breast feathering.
The color of the circumorbital patch merits comment. Individuals of all previously known species of Melipotes can "flush" this patch a reddish or deep-orange color when agitated. Melipotes carolae differs by exhibiting a circumorbital patch that, at all times, is substantially redder than the nonflushed state of those of the other species. This was visible and obvious at a distance in all free-ranging birds observed in the field (n = 15 sightings by B. M. B. and additional reported sightings by J. M. Diamond). Of apparent significance is that M. carolae appears to exhibit a circumorbital patch whose permanent state is much like the "flushed" state of the other species of Melipotes. Our many photographs of M. carolae indicate some mottling of facial color at times, but no change in state from unflushed to flushed such as that found in ater, gymnops, and fumigatus (e.g., Fig. 2B, D).
The three other species of Melipotes differ from carolae in the following ways: M. ater (Fig. 2F), which inhabits the upland forests of the Huon Peninsula (Fig. 1), is substantially larger (more than twice the mass of all other Melipotes), with a yellow circumorbital patch, satin-black plumage, white spotting on the breast, and a nonpendant caruncle-like "sub-wattle" on the lower edge of the yellow circumorbital patch. Melipotes ater is considerably more sociable and noisy than any other member of the genus (J. M. Diamond pers. comm.). Melipotes gymnops (see Coates 2001), which inhabits the upland forests of the Vogelkop and Bird's Neck Peninsula of westernmost New Guinea (Fig. 1), has a dark throat, distinctive pale streaks on the lower breast and belly, ochre-washed undertail coverts, and a yellow circumorbital patch. Melipotes fumigatus (Fig. 2B, D), a widespread upland species of the New Guinean central cordillera, the Cyclops, Bewani, and Kumawa ranges (Fig. 1), is in most ways similar to M. carolae but exhibits an orange-yellow (not red-orange) circumorbital face patch, lacks the pendant wattle, and exhibits a distinctly paler chin patch that contrasts with the dark breast plumage.
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