Notes on mammals collected on the 1885 Geographical Society of Australasia’s Expedition to New Guinea

In 1885 the Geographical Society of Australasia sent the steam launch Bonito to chart the Fly and Strickland Rivers (now in Western Province, Papua New Guinea). The Expedition spent five months in New Guinea with the primary objectives of survey and biological exploration. The type locality of the murid rodent Melomys muscalis froggatti Troughton, 1937, described from a single specimen obtained during the Expedition, is localized to the region of the base camp at Observation Bend, Strickland River, based on the original Expedition maps and the unpublished diary reminiscence of the collector W. W. Froggatt. A review of the mammal collection obtained during that Expedition has not been reported previously, perhaps due to the poor surviving documentation. Several months after the Expedition returned to Sydney, Australian Museum curator E. P. Ramsay prepared a list of 22 mammal specimens received by the Museum. Twenty specimens attributed to the Expedition were not entered into the collection registers until 1913, half of which are likely to be incorrectly associated with the Expedition. Most specimens were registered with very limited data about collection date and locality. Of the 22 specimens originally received by Ramsay, eight rodents and two flying foxes (Pteropus spp.) have not been located in the Collection, but might remain unrecognized as specimens with no data. It is possible that additional mammal specimens were sent by the Geographical Society of Australasia to other institutions at the conclusion of the Expedition.