Neotype designation for Red-winged Blackbird ( Agelaius phoeniceus )

Mearns (1911) and Howell and Van Rossem (1928) attempted to restrict the type locality of the Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) and the nominate subspecies to Charleston, South Carolina, USA, using Mearns’ (1911) unfounded statement that Linnaeus based his description only on M. Catesby’s work. A taxon’s type locality can only be the location where the syntypes were described or collected. Linnaeus referenced other authors than Catesby in his original description, resulting in a much broader type locality, covering the range of multiple currently recognized subspecies. No valid designation of a lectotype or neotype was made by Mearns (1911) or Howell and Van Rossem (1928), or any later author. No known syntypes of A. phoeniceus are extant. In order to promote stability in the nomenclature, I designate a neotype for Agelaius phoeniceus, collected originally by E. Mearns in 1911 in Charleston, South Carolina, and now stored at Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History.