Records of the Western Australian Museum 18: 225-231 (1997). 
2 3 JAM 1S98 
Chlamydera guttata carteri Mathews, 1920 - an overlooked subspecies of 
Western Bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchidae) from North West Cape, 
Western Australia 
Clifford B. Frith and Dawn W. Frith 
'Prionodura', PO Box 581, Malanda, Queensland 4885, Australia 
Abstract - The subspecies of Western Bowerbird named Chlamydera guttata 
carteri Mathews 1920, known only from the North West Cape of Western 
Australia, has remained in the synonymy of C. guttata since 1930. A review 
of all known specimens of C. g. carteri and of 33 other C. guttata skins from 
adjacent areas of Western Australia indicate that C. g. carteri of North West 
Cape is a valid subspecies distinctive in its significant small size, particularly 
wing length, and plumage markings and coloration. Populations of nine 
other passerine species isolated on North West Cape, one a diminutive 
endemic subspecies, indicate this as a historic centre for avian subspeciation. 
INTRODUCTION 
Populations of spotted bowerbirds ( Chlamydera ) 
from the arid interior of central Australia and mid¬ 
central Western Australia were long ago 
considered to be sufficiently different from those 
of western Queensland, New South Wales and 
Victoria to be treated as specifically distinct and 
were given the name Chlamydera guttata by John 
Gould (1862). They reach the western coastal zone 
in the area of North West Cape and Burrup 
Peninsula of northwestern Western Australia (Storr 
1984, Figure 1). Among other differences, they have 
no sign of the conspicuously contrasting nape 
patch of uniform grey feathering typical of the 
eastern form. The specific status of C. guttata was 
widely accepted until Mathews (1912, 1946) 
combined it with the eastern form, C. maculata. 
Most authors subsequent to Mathews (1946) have 
treated all populations of Australian spotted 
bowerbirds as a single species under C. maculata 
(e.g., Whittell and Serventy 1948, Mayr 1962, 
Gilliard 1969, Schodde 1975, Storr 1977, Cooper 
and Forshaw 1977). Mayr and Jennings (1952) 
suggested the possibility, however, that what they 
termed the "guttata group" of bowerbirds in 
central and western Australia might again be 
considered a species separate from C. maculata of 
eastern Australia, They considered the material 
available to them of the guttata group "altogether 
insufficient for determination of geographical 
variation" and noted that study of more extensive 
material was desirable. Keast (1961) repeated the 
view that the maculata and guttata populations 
"were approaching, or have reached, that stage of 
differentiation typical of species". 
Schodde (1982) subsequently acknowledged the 
mid-central and Western Australian populations of 
spotted bowerbirds to constitute the distinct 
species C. guttata of Gould (1862). In publications 
too numerous to detail here, opinion as to the 
status of guttata as a good species or merely as a 
subspecies of C. maculata has swung back and forth 
during the past two decades. Suffice to say that 
while the influential ornithological works of Mayr 
and Jennings (1952), Gilliard (1969), Hall (1974), 
Schodde (1975), Cooper and Forshaw (1977), Storr 
(1984, 1985, 1991) treat guttata as only a subspecies 
of C. maculata , more recent works accept C. guttata 
as a full species (Schodde and Tidemann 1986, 
Sibley and Monroe 1993, Christidis and Boles 
1994). Little is published supporting either action. 
Populations of C. guttata have now come to be 
known collectively as the Western Bowerbird. 
Based on a specimen (sex not indicated) collected 
at "North-west Cape, Mid-west Australia, August 
7th, 1916", Gregory Mathews (1920) named a new 
subspecies of spotted bowerbird Chlamydera 
maculata nova. In describing this new subspecies 
Mathews wrote that it "Differs from C. m. 
subguttata Mathews in having the yellow on the 
breast and abdomen much deeper and richer flank 
markings bolder, less black on the throat and upper 
chest, and the bill smaller" but did not present 
measurements of birds. The subspecies C. m. 
subguttata Mathews, 1912 was described from the 
East Murchison River, near Wiluna in Western 
Australia (see Figure 1), but was subsequently 
treated as invalid by Mathews himself (Mathews 
1930, 1931) and by all subsequent authors. 
Within three months of erecting the name C. m. 
nova, Mathews found that it was preoccupied and 
renamed it C. in. carteri, after the original collector 
