Ernst Mayr (1904-2005) and the birds of Oceania and adjacent areas

Abstract

In 1928–1930, Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) went on ornithological expeditions to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The results obtained formed the foundation of his later systematic studies as a research ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History (New York City) where he analyzed the variation, distribution, and speciation of the birds of Oceania, especially New Guinea, Melanesia and Polynesia, and of some adjacent regions. These studies are here summarized and several examples of avian distribution patterns and of regional character analyses of birds are illustrated. The results of Mayr's ornithological studies formed the intellectual database for his later work in the fields of zoogeography and evolutionary biology. Modern molecular analyses of certain groups of monarch flycatchers indicated a history of diversification in the tropical Pacific which accords well with the results of Mayr's morphological analyses of these species. A letter by E. Stresemann to E. Mayr reviewing the book on Birds of the Philippines (1946) by J. Delacour & E. Mayr is included. Lists of 26 new biological species of birds and 445 new subspecies which Mayr described are presented as well as a list of animals and plants named in his honor and the taxa of birds described by Hartert (1930) from the material Mayr had collected in northwestern New Guinea in 1928. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)