Vanikoro Monarch

SCI Name:  Mayrornis schistaceus
Protonym:  Mayrornis schistaceus Am.Mus.Novit. no.651 p.19
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Monarchidae / Mayrornis
Taxonomy Code:  vanmon1
Type Locality:  Vanikoro Island, Santa Cruz Islands.
Author:  Mayr
Publish Year:  1933
IUCN Status:  Vulnerable

DEFINITIONS

MAYRORNIS
(Monarchidae; † Slaty Monarch M. lessoni) Dr Ernst Walter Mayr (1904-2005) German ornithologist, systematist; Gr. ορνις ornis, ορνιθος ornithos  bird. "A number of years ago during work on a collection of birds from islands of the southern Pacific the writer observed that the generic name of Muscylva Lesson [1831], in current use for the curious flycatcher of Fiji described originally by Gray [1846] as Rhipidura lessoni, was involved in hopeless complication due to the fact that its original basis was composite and that it had no type designation.  ...  It is sufficient to say that in an endeavour to straighten out this nomenclatural tangle the writer designated the type of Muscylva Lesson as Muscicapa caerulea Brehm, there being no way open to save it for current use, which made Muscylva a synonym of Hypothymis Boie, and so eliminated it from further consideration.  At the same time he set up the new name Haplornis to replace Muscylva, but through absorption in the involved discussion concerned with the status of the latter name neglected definitely to designate a type, so that Haplornis, cited simply as a new name, ranks as a synonym of Muscylva, and so must be placed with that name in the synonymy of Hypothymis.  Dr. Witmer Stone in reviewing this paper in the Auk (1920, p. 160) attempted to rectify this error by designating Rhipidura lessoni Gray as type of Haplornis, but this action is believed to have come too late to be valid.  It has long been my intention to give this question further attention, but various matters have prevented until now when Dr. Ernst Mayr, engaged in study of the Pacific Island collections of the American Museum of Natural History, brings the matter again to attention with the request that I discuss it as he has need to treat the species concerned in a revision of the flycatchers of Polynesia.  There is proposed the genus Mayrornis gen. nov.  Characters:— Generally similar to Chasiempis Cabanis, but with rictal bristles less prominently developed; feet decidedly smaller, with anterior toes weaker; tarsus relatively shorter.   Type— Rhipidura lessoni Gray, which becomes Mayrornis lessoni (Gray).  The genus is named in honor of Dr. Ernst Mayr in recognition of his work on the avifauna of the Pacific Islands." (Wetmore 1932); "Mayrornis Wetmore, 1932, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 45, p. 104.  Type, by original designation, Rhipidura lessoni G. R. Gray." (Mayr in Peters, 1986, XI, p. 495). 
Var. Mayornis.

schistaceum / schistaceus
Late L. schistaceus  slate-grey  < schistus  slate  < L. lapis schistos  fissile stone  < Gr. σχιστος skhistos  cloven  < σχιζω skhizō  to split.