Spectacular Representative
Victoria's state emblem, the Helmeted Honeyeater, is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular representatives of this characteristic Australian family. Now endangered and always limited in its distribution, the bird was not described until 1 December 1867, when both Frederick McCoy and John Gould published announcements of its discovery on the same day.
McCoy named the bird Ptilotis leadbeateri after his taxidermist, John Leadbeater, while Gould conferred the name P. cassidix also acknowledging that it had been Sir William Jardine who first considered the bird a new species. As Gould's description of the bird was accompanied by an illustration it has been accepted as the original name.
Gould announced that the bird was the finest species of the genus Ptilotis yet discovered. Working from a skin specimen he added, '... we shall not, I trust, long remain ignorant of its habits and economy.'
He continued with a flourish:
... a species which must hereafter be placed in our museums at the head of the genus Ptilotis, the members of which are nearly as numerous as the various kinds of Eucalypti, upon the flowers of which they mainly subsist, and with which their yellow ear-tufts vie in beauty of colouring.
In fact both men seem to have been too quick to claim the bird as a distinctly new species. Recent genetic studies by the Museum have confirmed an earlier study that revealed the Helmeted Honeyeater is not a discreet species at all, but a subspecies of the more common Yellow-tufted Honeyeater.