NAMES OF THE WEEK from:  2013   2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2020  2021  2023

18 December
Lotella rhacina (Forster 1801)

Many fishes, especially those from the Mediterranean, have names that date to ancient Greece and Rome. But the meanings of such names, and even the species they refer to, often change or get lost entirely over the centuries. Monks working in scriptoria can miscopy the texts they are copying by hand on parchment. Translators may mistranslate or change the meaning of a text. And translators who translate the translations can compound these errors even more. By the time an ancient name reaches an 18^th– or 19^th-century naturalist who formally assigns the name to a species, the original meaning of the name may be long gone. Imagine a lexicological version of the children’s game (called “telephone” in the US and Canada) in which players whisper a message to each other in a circle or line, and the message often becomes distorted by the time it reaches the last player.

The specific name of the Rock Cod Lotella rhacina is a case in point. No one knows what the specific epithet means, mainly because it’s not a Greek or Latin word. Originally, The ETYFish Project reported that “rhacina” is from “rhacinus,” the ancient name for a small black fish, dating to “Halieutica” (“On Fishing”), a fragmentary didactic poem spuriously attributed to Ovid, circa AD 17. Thanks to our friend and contributor Holger Funk, we now know that the full story of the name. It’s quite convoluted, so bear with us.

According to Dr. Funk, the first printed edition of “Halieutica” was published in Venice in 1534. It contains this passage: “caeruleaque rubens erythinus in unda” (“and the erythinus glowing red in the blue wave”). Erythinus (or Erythrinus) is an unidentified deep-sea fish, probably a grouper or sea bass (Serranidae) or a porgy (Sparidae). The name is derived from ἐρυθρός, meaning red. No one questions this reading. In fact, it appears in the most recent critical edition of “Halieutica” published by the Loeb Classical Library in 1929 along with several reprints since then.

But that’s not the reading that apparently made its way to Johann Reinhold Forster (1729­–1798), the naturalist aboard the second voyage of Capt. James Cook around the world. Forster encountered a new kind of fish captured off Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand. He named it “Gadum Rhacinum” in an unpublished manuscript. German naturalist Johann Schneider (1750–1822) quoted a portion of Forster’s manuscript in his 1801 edition of Bloch’s Systema Ichthyologiae, crediting Forster with the name and emending it to Gadus rhacinus. In 1844, Forster’s complete manuscript was posthumously published. Forster was quite clear about why he selected the name: “Since Ovid called a certain fish of a dusky or black color Rhacinus, and our Gadus is of exactly the same color, I did not hesitate to call the same Rhacinus” (translated from Latin).

But wait! The fish in “Halieutica” is “glowing red,” not black. And where did the word “Rhacinus,” not mentioned in “Halieutica,” come from? Here’s where the convolutions begin.

Forster apparently was not citing “Halieutica” directly, but rather passages from “Halieutica” quoted by Roman author and naturalist Pliny the Elder in his encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (AD 77–79). In a 1476 printed edition of Pliny’s work, the uncontested passage “caeruleaque rubens erythinus in unda” is corrupted as “nubentemque acrium pulum.” This is nonsensical Latin, according to Dr. Funk, untranslatable, even if one corrects the obvious misspellings “nubentemque” and “pulum” to reasonable Latin wording (“rubentemque” and “pullum”). Italian anatomist and surgeon Alessandro Benedetti (ca. 1450–1512) apparently tried to fix this reading in his edition of Pliny’s work, published in 1513: “rhacinumque pullum” (“and the black rhacinus”). The same error (“the blacke Rhacinus”) is found in 1634 English translation of Pliny’s work by Philemon Holland (1552–1637).

To review: caeruleaque rubens erythinus in unda” (“and the erythinus glowing red in the blue wave”) somehow became “rhacinumque pullum” (“and the black rhacinus”).

Our guess is that Forster had read Benedetti’s edition of Pliny, or Holland’s translation, or perhaps some other edition that repeated the “black Rhacinus” mistake. Forster repurposed or resurrected the ancient name for a similarly black or blackish fish. The fact that Lotella rhacina is actually yellow-grey to red-brown in life is not important; it’s possible that Forster’s specimen turned darker after death or in spirits.

Dr. Funk called “rhacinus” an “un-word.” You won’t find it in any classical Greek or Latin dictionary. And despite the fact that classical scholars were aware that “rhacinus” is a mistake, it lives on, rather nonsensically, in the name of a fish.

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11 December
Eight new species of Parauchenoglanis

While most ichthyologists who describe new taxa probably give careful consideration to the names they choose, it’s rare when one acknowledges the value of a name. Here’s a refreshing exception.

Last month, a team of five ichthyologists published a paper revealing hidden species diversity in the widespread Zambezi Grunter Parauchenoglanis ngamensis, a catfish from southern and south-central Africa. Using a combination of molecular (barcoding), color pattern, and other morphological data, the authors discovered that P. ngamensis actually represents nine species, eight of them new. In addition to the formally published descriptions, the study’s lead author, Yonela Sithole of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), also wrote a public-outreach essay for SAIAB’s website. In the essay, titled “Unveiling New Species: How Eight New Catfish Species Were Named,” Dr. Sithole writes:

“Naming a new species is a significant aspect of scientific research, and each name carries meaning, whether it reflects a key feature of the species, its place of discovery, or honours a person who has contributed to the field.”

I can’t think of a more succinct explanation of the value of the names we celebrate at The ETYFish Project.

Here are the names of the eight new species and what they mean:

Species named after people:

Parauchenoglanis patersoni in honor of Angus Paterson, former managing director of the National Research Foundation-South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (NRF-SAIAB), for his “determination and efforts to build taxonomic expertise and drive ichthyological explor­ation in poorly surveyed areas in southern Africa”

Parauchenoglanis ernstswartzi in honor of Ernst Swartz, Research Associate, South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, who collected specimens used in the description of six new species in the authors’ study, for his “pioneering and extensive exploration of the Kwanza and adjacent river systems, including the upper Kasai sub-basin”

Species name based on external characteristics:

Parauchenoglanis dolichorhinus from the Greek dolichós (δολιχός), long, and rhinós (ῥινός), genitive of rhís (ῥίς), nose, referring to its long snout (preorbital length) compared with others in the P. ngamensis group

Parauchenoglanis poikilos from the Greek adjective poikílos (ποικίλος), spotted, referring to the numerous distinctive spots along its body

Parauchenoglanis megalasma from the Greek mégas (μέγας), large or great, and mélasma (μέλασμα), black spot, referring to the prominent, large black blotches along its lateral line

Species named after locations:

Parauchenoglanis lueleensis –ensis, Latin suffix denoting place: Luele River in the Kasai sub-basin, Angola, where it occurs

Parauchenoglanis luendaensis –ensis, Latin suffix denoting place: Luenda River in the Kasai sub-basin, Angola, where it occurs

Parauchenoglanis chiumbeensis –ensis, Latin suffix denoting place: Chiumbe River in the Kasai sub-basin, Angola, type locality

The name of the genus Parauchenoglanis, proposed by Belgian-born British ichthyologist-herpetologist George A. Boulenger (1858–1937) in 1911, begins with the Greek prefix pará (παρά), meaning near, referring to the genus’ similarity to and/or close relationship with Auchenoglanis, the type genus of the catfish family Auchenoglanididae. Boulenger also described the Zambezi Grunter Parauchenoglanis ngamensis, naming it for the Lake Ngami district (of area) of Botswana, where it was first collected. 

Dr. Sithole concludes here essay saying, “The diversity of names reflects the rich variety of physical characteristics and habitats of these fish, as well as the importance of ichthyological exploration in Africa. By honouring people, places, and unique features, the naming process adds a layer of meaning to the scientific discovery, ensuring that these species are forever linked to the stories of their discovery.”

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4 December
G. David Johnson (1945–2024)

Four days after the passing of David G. Smith (see last week’s NOTW), the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Fishes lost another prominent colleague, G. David Johnson. He died after a fall following cardiac arrest.

Dr. Johnson earned his BS from the University of Texas, Austin, and his PhD from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He joined the curatorial staff of the Smithsonian’s Division of Fishes in 1983. His areas of specialty were the comparative morphology of fishes in general and the taxonomy of larval fishes in particular. Dr. Johnson’s name is attached to 11 new genera and 40 new species of fishes from 1977 to 2013, usually in collaboration with some of the best-known ichthyologists of the day, including William F. Smith-Vaniz, Richard H. Rosenblatt, Carole C. Baldwin, William D. Anderson, Jr., John R. Paxton, Stuart G. Poss, Hsuan-Ching Ho, Keiichi Matsuura, Seishi Kimura, Matthew G. Girard, and the aforementioned David G. Smith.

Three of Dr. Johnson’s many publications stand out in my memory.

• The 2009 discovery that fishes assigned to three families with greatly differing morphologies, Mirapinnidae (tapetails), Megalomycteridae (bignose fishes) and Cetomimidae (whalefishes), are larvae, males and females, respectively, of a single family, Cetomimidae.
• The description of a new family, genus and species of eel, Protanguilla palau, from a deep underwater cave in a fringing reef off the coast of Palau. This eel is considered to be the most primitive living lineage of anguilliform fishes.
• The description of Monomitopus ainonaka Girard, Carter & Johnson 2023, which highlights the “importance of blackwater photography in advancing our understanding of marine larval fish biology.” (See NOTW 20 Sept. 2023.) The species is name for Dr. Johnson’s wife, Ai Nonaka, a research assistant at the Smithsonian’s Division of Fishes.

For his scholarly contributions, Dr. Johnson received the Robert H. Gibbs, Jr. Memorial Award for Excellence in Systematic Ichthyology by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in 2003.

Only one species of fish so far has been named in Dr. Johnson’s honor. It is the White-cheeked Blenny Acanthemblemaria johnsoni Almany & Baldwin 1996, found in coral reefs around Tobago in the western central Atlantic Ocean. Dr. Johnson collected the holotype and was honored for his contributions to the systematics of a broad array of teleostean taxa (including Acanthemblemaria), and his “inspirational” knowledge of teleostean anatomy and phylogeny.

Those who followed Dr. Johnson on social media know that his avatar was a “mug shot” he took of a museum specimen of the deep-sea Telescope Fish Gigantura indica. The photo has become an online celebrity of sorts, being widely shared, “memed” and commented upon. My son, when he was in middle school, encountered the photo online and painted a water-color version of it in art class. The painting now hangs in our family room. A few weeks ago, a good friend of ours visited with her high-school-aged son. He saw the painting and said, “Hey, look, a Telescope Fish.”

I like to think that Dr. Johnson would have appreciated that.

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27 November
David G. Smith (1942–2024)

Last week was an extraordinarily sad week at the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Fishes. Two of their ichthyologists have passed away, David G. Smith on November 18, and G. David Johnson on November 22. We’ll honor their contributions this week and next, starting with Dr. Smith.

David G. Smith was the world’s taxonomic authority on eels (Anguilliformes), and served as our go-to expert whenever we needed help with an “eel-tymology.” He described or co-described one new family (Colocongridae), eight new genera and 74 new species, all of which remain valid today. Perhaps his greatest systematic contribution was preparing original content and editing the two volumes (Volume 1, adult eels, Volume 2, Leptocephali) of Part Nine of the Fishes of the Western North Atlantic series, published in 1989. In addition to naming many eel taxa, six fish species, four of them eels, have been named after him:

Gymnothorax davidsmithi McCosker & Randall 2008 … Flores Mud Moray from Indonesia

Gymnothorax smithi Sumod, Mohapatra, Sanjeevan, Kishor & Bineesh 2019 … Indian White-spotted Moray from the western Indian Ocean

Gnathophis smithi Karmovskaya 1990 … a conger eel from the southeast Pacific

Rhynchoconger smithi Mohapatra, Ho, Acharya, Ray & Mishra 2022 … a longnose conger eel from the eastern Indian Ocean

Elops smithi McBride, Rocha, Ruiz-Carus & Bowen 2010 … Southern Ladyfish (Elopidae) from the western South Atlantic

Ogilbia davidsmithi Møller, Schwarzhans & Nielsen 2005 … Cortez Brotula (Dinematichthyidae) from the Gulf of California

Dr. Smith was born in Buffalo, New York, and was awarded his BS in Vertebrate Zoology at Cornell University (1964), and his MS and PhD from University of Miami (1967, 1971, respectively). Dr. Smith was a Museum Specialist in Smithsonian’s Division of Fishes from 1989 until his retirement in 2012. He inventoried their collection of Anguilliformes, including cataloging 8,600 (25,320 specimens) of the 13,900 total eel lots (40,500 specimens). In so doing, he reidentified nearly all of the museum’s holdings of eels, the largest collection of eels in the world. In addition to his research on eels, Dr. Smith was also the Ichthyology Historian for the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH). Often in collaboration with his wife, Inci Bowman, he wrote in-depth essays on the lives of members of ASIH published in the Society’s journal. The ETYFish Project has made frequent use of these superb essays.

Dr. Smith’s scholarly contributions were celebrated by ASIH earlier this year when he received the Society’s Robert H. Gibbs, Jr. Memorial Award for Excellence in Systematic Ichthyology. His Smithsonian colleague, Dr. Katherine E. Bemis, nominated him for the award (read her nomination letter here). In his brief acceptance speech, recorded just five months before his passing, Dr. Smith described himself, quoting baseball great Lou Gehrig, as the “luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

SPECIAL THANKS to Dr. Katherine E. Bemis, NOAA Fisheries National Systematics Laboratory, for sharing the video and her letter nominating Dr. Smith for the Gibbs Award.

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20 November
Coryphaena equiselis Linnaeus 1758    

Thanks to ETYFish contributor Holger Funk, we now have a more accurate understanding of the etymology of “equiselis” in the name of the Pompano Dolphinfish Coryphaena equiselis.

Originally, we had posted:

pre-Linnaean name coined as equisetis by Osbeck (1757), equus, horse; setis, bristle, allusion not explained, possibly referring to mane-like dorsal fin (Linnaeus changed spelling to equiselis when he made name available; since Linnaeus continued to use that spelling in future works, his spelling is retained)

Two errors: (1) Swedish naturalist Pehr Osbeck (1723–1805) did not “coin” the name. (2) Linnaeus did not change the spelling of “equisetis” to “equiselis.” Someone else did. Here’s the full story:

“Equiselis” is a corrupted spelling of the plant name “equisaetum” from Pliny’s Natural History and usually identified as the vascular plant Horsetail Equisetum arvense, described by Pliny as being “covered with horsehair” (equus = horse; seta or saeta = hair or bristle). Theodorus Gaza (1400–1475), a Greek humanist and translator of Aristotle, published the name as “equiselis” in his translation of Aristotle to render the fish name híppouros (ἵππουρος) from Pliny. (See footnote, below.) The change from “equisetis” to the nonsensical “equiselis” was probably a scribe’s error.

Pehr Osbeck corrected Gaza’s spelling from “equiselis” to “equisetis” in his 1757 work Diary of an East Indian journey in 1750, 1751, 1752: With notes on natural science, on the language, customs, housework, etc. of various peoples (detail shown here.) Linnaeus was no doubt familiar with Osbeck’s work. After all, Osbeck was one of Linnaeus’ “apostles,” a group of students who collected plant and animal specimens for their teacher throughout the world. But Linnaeus retained the misspelling because that was the spelling used by his friend Peter Artedi (1705–1735), the so-called “father of modern ichthyology.” Linnaeus drew upon Artedi’s posthumously published Ichthyologia sive opera omnia piscibus (1738) for the fish portions of his tenth edition of Systema naturae (1758) — the starting point of zoological nomenclature — and where the name Coryphaena equiselis made its official debut. 

While neither Gaza, Osbeck, Artedi nor Linnaeus explained why the fish’s name means “horse hair,” the best guess is that it refers to the mane-like dorsal fin.

Footnote: Pliny’s híppouros is the source of Coryphaena hippurus Linnaeus 1758, the Dolphinfish (or Mahi-mahi in the restaurant trade). The name translates as “horsetail,” which has confused scholars for centuries since the fish’s forked tail looks nothing like that of a horse. It’s interesting to note that the names of both C. equiselis and C. hippurus mirror the names of two superficially similar genera of plants, Horsetail (Equisetum) and Mare’s-tail (Hippurus). The stalks of both plants, with their bristly branches, have some resemblance to a horse’s tail. For reasons perhaps known only to the ancients, names for the horsetail-like plants were applied to the fish’s mane-like dorsal fins.

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13 November
The “Dune” pipefish

“The Lord of the Rings” has inspired several fish names. “Star Wars” and “Dr. Who” have inspired a few as well. Now we have another sci-fi/fantasy-themed entry in piscine nomina, a new species of freshwater pipefish named for Arrakis, the desert planet in Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune and subsequent sequels and film adaptations.

Microphis arrakisae, with a long list of authors — Haÿ, Mennesson, Dahruddin, Sauri, Limmon, Wowor, Hubert, Keith & Lord 2024 — does not occur in a desert. Instead, it occurs in freshwater streams in the western Indonesia islands of the Sunda Shelf, including Java, Bali and Lombok. So why the reference to a sand- and rock-covered fictional desert planet inhabited by giant sandworms known as “Shai-Hulud”?

Three reasons: (1) The name is a “tribute” to Herbert’s to “influential” work of science fiction. (2) The fish’s yellowish coloration in life resembles the color of sand. (3) The fish’s swimming behavior between rocks is like that of a snake or a worm, and reminiscent of the planet’s giant sandworms and reflects the etymology of the generic name Microphis (from the Greek mikrós, small, and óphis, serpent).

Although described in the genus Microphis Kaup 1853, Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes (ECoF) places the species in the genus Lophocampus Dawson 1984. In 2023, four of the researchers who described M. arrakisae — Haÿ, Mennesson, Lord and Keith — grouped four freshwater pipefish genera (Belonichthys, Coelonotus, Lophocampus, Microphis) under the oldest genus-level name, Microphis. The editors of ECoF are not yet convinced this is the right way to go and are waiting to see additional research to confirm or deny the synonymizations.

This forces ETYFish to make a decision. Which classification do we use? Following Haÿ et al. (2023), we had placed all species of Belonichthys, Coelonotus and Lophocampus into Microphis. Should we, following ECoF, reinstate the three genera?

We will reinstate. Our rationale is this: The ETYFish Project is not a taxonomic reference, so we should not include or exclude nomina based on whether we agree or disagree with publish taxonomic findings and opinions (although we do our best to follow the latest taxonomic research). Instead, we are a nomenclatural reference. So, if a name is still in use by some frequently cited authorities (e.g., ECoF), then we should include it. Therefore, we will treat Belonichthys, Coelonotus and Lophocampus as valid, and treat the newly described Microphis arrakisae as Lophocampus arrakisae. However, we will also add notes indicating that some workers regard these genera as synonyms of Microphis.

When there’s a taxonomic agreement among the experts, we prefer to over- rather than underrepresent the number of available names.

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6 November
Snubbed again!

Once again, The ETYFish Project has failed to win the Nobel Prize for Ichthyology.

Because, once again, the Nobel Prize Foundation has refused to recognize ichthyology as a category worthy of its award.

Why Stockholm continues to snub ichthyology in favor of medicine, literature, physics, chemistry, economics and peace is beyond us.

But we’re not bitter. In fact, we’d like to take this opportunity to recognize the many Nobel Prize laureates honored in the names of fishes.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Abudefduf lorenzi Hensley & Allen 1977 — a damselfish from the western Pacific Ocean named for Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), for his contributions to the science of ethology. Lorenz shared the Nobel Prize in 1973 with Karl von Frisch and Nikolaas Tinbergen for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns

 The Nobel Prize in Literature

Etheostoma faulkneri Sterling & Warren 2020 — in honor of writer William C. Faulkner (1897–1962), a native of Oxford, Mississippi (USA); an avid hunter and fisher, the landscape was an important theme in many of his works, and the actions of his characters were often influenced by the lands and streams surrounding his fictional Jefferson, Mississippi, including the Yocona River, where this darter occurs. Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in 1949 for his “powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel”

Lampanyctus steinbecki Bolin 1939 — a lanternfish (Myctophidae) named in honor of Bolin’s friend John Steinbeck (1902­­–1968), author of such classic American novels as Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, and a serious amateur naturalist who enjoyed collecting and studying the aquatic life of Monterey Bay and the Gulf of California. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962 for his “realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception”

Trichomycterus garciamarquezi Ardila Rodríguez 2016 — named in honor of writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927–2014), who was born in the area of Colombia bordered by the rivers Tucurinca and Aracataca, where this catfish occurs. Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize in 1982 for his “novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent’s life and conflicts”

The Nobel Peace Prize

Nansenia Jordan & Evermann 1896 — pencil smelt genus (Microstomatidae) named for the authors’ friend Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930), a Norwegian polymath who studied hagfishes, explored the Arctic, and later, became a diplomat and humanitarian. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his leading role in the repatriation of prisoners of war, in international relief work and as the League of Nations’ High Commissioner for refugees

Ophichthus nansen McCosker & Psomadakis 2018 — a snake eel from Myanmar named for both the EAFNansen Prorgramme and Fridtjof Nansen, for whom the research programme was named. Since 1975, the “EAF-Nansen Programme has contributed to increasing the knowledge of global marine biodiversity while supporting developing countries in fisheries research and sustainable management of their resources throughout surveys at sea and capacity building”

Luthulenchelys McCosker 2007 — a genus of snake eel (Ophichthidae) with one species found off the coast of South Africa. Named in honor of Chief Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli (ca. 1898–1967) of KwaZulu-Natal, former President of the African National Congress. Luthuli won the Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle against apartheid. (Enchelys is Greek for eel)

Etheostoma jimmycarter Mayden & Layman 2012 — a darter (Percidae) from Kentucky and Tennessee named for Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, for his environmental leadership and life-long commitment to social justice. Carter won the Peace Prize in 2002 for his “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”

Etheostoma gore Mayden & Layman 2012 — a darter (Percidae) from Kentucky and Tennessee named for Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, for his environmental vi­sion, commitment, and accomplishments. Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change jointly won the Peace Prize in 2007 for their “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”

Etheostoma obama Mayden & Layman 2012 — a darter (Percidae) from Tennessee named for Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, for his “environmental leadership and commitment during challenging economic times in the areas of clean energy, energy efficiency, environmental protection and humanitarian efforts globally, and especially for the people of the United States.” Obama won the Peace Prize in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”

Enteromius mandelai Kambikambi, Kadye & Chakona 2021 — the Eastern Chubbyhead Barb (Cyprinidae) is named for Nelson Mandela (1918–2013), South Africa’s first democratically elected head of state, who was from the Eastern Cape Province where this species is endemic. Mandela won the Peace Prize with F. W. de Klerk in 1993 for their “work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa”

Yes, we realize there may never be a Nobel Prize for Ichthyology.

But that won’t stop The ETYFish Project from delivering the quality content that justifies creating one. 😊

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30 October
Five fishes for Halloween

Ghost Hagfish
Myxine phantasma Mincarone, Plachetzki, McCord, Winegard, Fernholm, Gonzalez & Fudge 2021
This hagfish, endemic to the Galápagos Islands, is named for the Greek “phántasma,” an apparition, phantom or ghost. The name refers to its transparent skin, the only species of its genus known to lack melanin-based pigments.

Here’s another ghostly fish from the Galápagos:

Ghost Scabbardfish
Lepidopus manis Rosenblatt & Wilson 1987
This species is known from only one specimen, 691 mm, collected in 1951. Its name is Latin for ghost or soul of the departed, referring to the “ghost-like appearance” of its large eyes.

Most ghosts are spirits of the dead. This fish is a ghost in spirits:

Ghostly Scorpionfish
Scorpaena gasta Motomura, Last & Yearsley 2006
This scorpion fish is endemic to the Eastern Indian Ocean off the southwest coast of Australia. Its name is derived from the Old English “gast,” a spirit or apparition, referring to its “somewhat ghostly appearance” when preserved in alcohol (spirits). “Gast” is also the source of the Middle-English adjective “ghastly,” causing great horror or fear.

One fish that causes great horror or fear is …

Estuarine Stonefish
Synanceia horrida (Linnaeus 1766)
Stonefishes are among the most dangerous venomous fishes in the world. The spines in its fins act like hypodermic syringes. When handled or stepped on, the spines eject an extremely painful and sometimes fatal venom. The specific name “horrida” means dreadful or frightful but probably does not refer to its danger to humans. Linnaeus borrowed the name from Gronow’s Zoophylacii (1763), where Gronow described the fish’s appearance as “monstrous and horrendous” (translation). The venomous spines were probably unknown to European naturalists at the time.

And, last but not least, a fish named after a monster:

Pink Vent Fish
Thermarces cerberus Rosenblatt & Cohen 1986
This fish, a member of the eelpout family (Zoarcidae), is named for Cerberus, a three-headed dog-like monster in Greek mythology that guarded the gates of Hades. The name alludes to the fish’s type locality, a hydrothermal vent off Mexico in the eastern Pacific, at a depth of 2600 meters. A hellish environment for humans, but not for them.

See the Pink Vent Fish in action at the 2:25 time mark here:

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23 October
Caesio and the smoking gun

I receive comments, corrections and criticisms about my ETYFish entries all the time. Indeed, I welcome and depend upon them. As I say on the site’s intro page, “… if you see anything you believe is incorrect or could be improved upon, please let me know. You are my peer review.” These comments and corrections have improved many entries. But sometimes I receive etymological suggestions that I believe are off the mark. I seriously consider these suggestions and kindly explain to those who proffer them why I disagree. Sometimes my replies are met with resistance. A lively back-and-forth ensues. Caesio is a case in point.

Caesio is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes native to the Indian and western Pacific Oceans known as fusiliers. The genus was formally proposed for the Blue and Gold Fusilier Caesio caerulaurea by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacepède in 1801. Lacepède based his description on unpublished notes written by French naturalist Philibert Commerson (also spelled Commerçon), who first encountered the species during a 1766–1769 voyage around the world. Commerson provided the manuscript name “Caesio,” which Lacepède retained.  

The ETYFish entry explains that Caesio is from the Latin caesius, meaning blue, referring to the upper body of C. caerulaurea, described as a “sky blue most pleasant to the eye” (translated from the French). A correspondent whom I shall call Trevor (not his real name) proposed an alternate explanation. He pointed out that “caesius” has two meanings: (1) bluish gray and (2) cutting, sharp. In Latin, he said, “caesio means a cutting of trees, a lopping of trees, a hewing, a wounding, a killing.” He suggested that “caesio” may refer to the scissor-like shape of the fish’s caudal fin: “Scissors are for cutting,” he said. “Caesio may refer to the ‘cut-out’ notch at the center of Caesio caerulaurea’s tail.”

Trevor is correct in stating that “Caesio” has two different meanings, as the Wiktionary page for the word indicates. But Trevor is incorrect in suggesting that the name refers to the tail when Lacepède explicitly mentioned what the name means, and credited Commerson as the source: “Le naturaliste voyageur a tiré ce nom de caesio, de la couleur bleuâtre, en latin caesius, de l’animal qu’il avoit sous ses yeux.” (“The traveling naturalist took this name caesio, from the bluish color, in Latin caesius, of the animal he had before his eyes.”) Is there any ambiguity here? Is there any wiggle room for an alternative explanation? No. In this case, caesio clearly means blue, or bluish gray, and refers to the color of the fish.

I explained to Trevor that when researching fish-name etymologies, one must always consult the original description in which the name was proposed. If the author explains what the name means, then that is what the names means, even if the Latin or Greek words behind the name may have alternate meanings. I also pointed out that at least seven other fish species have “caesius” in their names, all referring to bluish gray.

Trevor remained unconvinced, saying that he is “restless” about Lacepède’s text. “There was more than 30 years between Commerson’s discovery and Lacépède’s description,” he told me, “plenty of time for misunderstanding to develop.” He concluded with these words: “I’m sticking with my side until I see smoking-gun evidence for your side.”

Always up for a fun etymological challenge, I acquired the smoking gun.

During my correspondence with Trevor, I learned that a fellow fish historian was studying Commerson’s original manuscripts for an upcoming monograph. The manuscripts are housed at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. I asked my colleague for a scan of Commerson’s notes on Caesio, which he promptly dispatched. On the last page of a 14-page handwritten manuscript, Commerson wrote: “Etymon Caesionem diximus habita ratione coloris caerulescentis sive Caesii in hoc pisce & forte congeneribus praedominantis.”

My translation:

“We have given the etymology of Caesio, taking into account the blue color, or Caesius, of this fish, and perhaps predominating in its congeners.”

I sent the smoking gun to Trevor. He acknowledged its receipt but as of this writing, over 11 weeks later, I have not seen a reply.

What’s my point in telling you all this? It’s this:

I spend a lot of time focusing on the things I’ve gotten wrong at ETYFish, or could have done better. When I completed my first run through of all the fishes in 2021, I considered the site a “solid first draft.” I’ve been revising and tinkering and polishing ever since. More importantly, I’ve never stopped learning. My understanding of Greek and Latin has improved. I know more about the origins of fish names that date to ancient Greece, the Renaissance and other pre-Linnaean publications. And I simply know more about the fishes themselves (and the people who’ve named them), over 37,000 species and counting. And thanks to Trevor and others like him, who care enough to take the time to note the flaws both big and small, the site gets a little bit better every day.

But when you spend so much time on the things you’ve gotten wrong, you tend to lose sight of the things you’ve gotten right. In the case of Caesio, I knew my explanation was correct and had incontrovertible evidence to back it up. So, please, allow me the opportunity to gloat just this once. As soon as I post this Name of the Week, I will humbly return to the long and never-ending list of corrigenda still waiting to be addressed.

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16 October
Ophisternon berlini Arroyave, Angulo, Mar-Silva & Stiassny 2024

If you’re ever in the Costa Rican rainforest, watch your step. There could be a new species of swamp eel “swimming” underfoot.

The recently described Ophisternon berlini was first encountered in 2021, when excavation work at the Las Brisas Nature Reserve in Limón, Costa Rica, uncovered two unfamiliar swamp eels (family Synbranchidae) maneuvering through the mud. Researchers, suspecting it was a new species, returned to the nature reserve in 2022 and 2023 to search for more. Their collection technique involved digging up blocks of mud and sifting through the dirt. They found five more specimens living about 61 cm below the swampy and muddy rainforest floor.

Despite the common name “swamp eel,” synbranchids are not true eels. They’re simply called eels because of their eel-like shape. With 30 species in seven genera, synbranchids have a remarkable discontinuous distribution across five continents: Africa, Asia, Australia, and both North and South America. Most species burrow in the muck of marshes and swamps. Two species live in caves. Ophisternon berlini joins a very small list of “endogean” fishes, that is, fishes that dwell in soil. The other two are also synbranchids: Rakthamichthys rongsaw of northeast India and Typhlosynbranchus luticolus of Cameroon.

Ophisternon berlini is a diminutive fish, reaching just under 16 cm in length, with a worm-like body, no fins, a pointed head, large teeth, and very small eyes covered with thick skin. Like other animals that live in darkness, these swamp eels have very little pigment in their skin. Instead, their pinkish color comes from the muscles visible inside their bodies.

Ophisternon berlini is the seventh valid species in the genus. British physician and ichthyologist John McClelland (1805–1875) proposed the genus in 1844 (possibly 1845) for Ophisternon bengalense, a wide-ranging species from India to the Mekong River basin of Cambodia and Vietnam, and the Philippines. The name is a combination of the Greek óphis (ὄφις), serpent, and stérnon (στέρνον), breast or chest, referring to how the trunk of the fish is “formed like that of a snake.”

The specific epithet berlini honors Erick Berlin, “a strong supporter of conservation and scientific research of Costa Rican biodiversity,” who first encountered this species and owns the nature reserve where it lives.

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9 October
Leonard J. V. Compagno (1943–2024)

This week we mourn the loss of Leonard J. V. Compagno, who passed away on September 25.

Dr. Compagno was a true giant in the field of chondrichthyan fish taxonomy. He described or co-described six new genera and 20 new species of sharks, three genera and 12 new species of rays, and three new species of chimaeras.

Much of Dr. Compagno’s early work established the framework and foundation for modern chondrichthyan classification, still followed today. And his two-volume Sharks of the World (1984 and 2001) for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, despite its age, is still a go-to reference today.

Dr. Compagno was even a movie star of sorts. While he was a graduate student at Stanford University, he was hired by Steven Spielberg for help in making sure the mechanical Great White Shark built for the 1975 blockbuster Jaws was anatomically correct. Compagno is prominently thanked in the final frames of the film.

Two species from off the coast of South Africa (where Compagno lived and conducted most of his research) have been named in his honor:

Brown Lantershark Etmopterus compagnoi Fricke & Koch 1990 ­— for Compagno’s research on South African sharks

Tigertail Ray Leucoraja compagnoi (Stehmann 1995) — for Compagno’s “fundamental contributions to chondrichthyan systematics, mainly on sharks, and his research devoted to South African chondrichthyans”

There will probably be more.

Fellow shark expert David A. Ebert wrote, “Leonard was a once in a generation researcher in our field whose contributions will influence generations to come.”

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2 October
Clyde D. Barbour (1935­–2023)

Late last week I learned from ichthyologist Tyson R. Roberts that American ichthyologist Clyde D. Barbour passed away nearly a year ago on 17 October 2023 after a long illness. He was 87.

Dr. Barbour earned his Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1966. His research focused on the fishes of the Central Plateau of Mexico. In 2000, he was honored by the Mexican Society of Ichthyology in Mexico City for his research contributions. He taught at the University of Utah, Mississippi State University, and Tuskegee University (Alabama), and was a professor emeritus from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. During many winters in retirement, he was a visiting scientist in the Fish Division of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. 

Fish taxa described or co-described by Dr. Barbour include chubs of the Mexican genus Algansea and silversides of the Neotropical genus Chirostoma.

Algansea aphanea Barbour & Miller 1978 aphanḗs (Gr. ἀφανής), invisible, secret or unknown, referring to the “considerable osteological differences separating it from other barbeled species of Algansea”

Algansea avia Barbour & Miller 1978 Latin for out of the way or re-mote, being the most western species of Algansea

Algansea monticola Barbour & Contreras-Balderas 1968 montis (L.), mountain, –cola (L.), dweller or inhabitant, referring to the “rugged nature” of the area in which it occurs in Zacatecas, Mexico

Algansea monticola archidion Barbour & Miller 1978 –idion (Gr. -ἴδιον), diminutive suffix: archídion (Gr. ἀρχίδιον), diminutive of archḗ (ἀρχή), principal or chief, here, per the authors, meaning petty office or position, referring to its subspecific status

Chirostoma aculeatum Barbour 1973 Latin for sharp-pointed or stinging, referring to its long, pointed snout

Chirostoma contrerasi Barbour 2002 in honor of Barbour’s friend and colleague Salvador Contreras-Balderas (1936–2009), for his many contributions to the study of the systematics, evolution and conservation of Mexican fishes

Dr. Barbour’s final contribution to ichthyology was co-authoring the chapter on New World Silversides (Atherininopsidae) in the 2020 book Freshwater Fishes of North America: Characidae to Poeciliidae.

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25 September
Hippocampus nalu Short, Claassens, Smith, de Brauwer, Hamilton, Stat & Harasti 2020

The name of this pygmy seahorse from South Africa has three etymologies:

(1) It’s named for the word “nalu,” which means “here it is” in the South African languages of Xhosa and Zulu, referring to how this species “was there all along until its discovery.” In fact, this diminutive fish — less than 2.7 cm — is the first pygmy seahorse from the Indian Ocean and the coast of Africa. (Its closest relatives live more than 8,000 km away in Southeast Asia.)

(2) It’s named in honor of Savannah Nalu Olivier, a dive instructor who noticed a tiny seahorse she couldn’t identify during one of her dives in South Africa’s Sodwana Bay, a popular diving destination. Subsequent dives by ichthyologists confirmed it was an undescribed species.

(3) It’s named for the Hawaiian word “nalu,” meaning waves or surf of the moana (ocean), referring to its habitat. The reefs of Sodwana Bay are exposed to the powerful swells of the Indian Ocean, unlike the sheltered coral reefs of Southeast Asia where the other pygmy seahorses are found. Ichthyologists found a pair along a rocky reef at 15m depth, grasping onto fronds of microscopic algae amidst the raging surge.

It’s three, three, three names in one!

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18 September
Fishes by Anonymous Part II

As stated last week, it wasn’t uncommon for animals to be named anonymously in the early years of Linnaean zoological nomenclature. The following “anonymous” fish taxa have an unusual bibliographic pedigree.

Glaucostegus thouin (Anonymous 1798), Clubnose Guitarfish named in honor of French botanist André Thouin (1746–1824), who helped secure a specimen in Holland and transported it to France [a noun in apposition, without the patronymic “i”]

Antennarius commerson (Anonymous 1798), Giant Frogfish named in honor of French naturalist Philibert Commerçon (also spelled Commerson, 1727­–1773), whose unpublished notes on this fish informed its description

Sphoeroides Anonymous 1798, pufferfish genus -oides, Neo-Latin from eī́dos (Gr. εἶδος), form or shape: sphaī́ra (Gr. σφαῖρα), ball or sphere, referring to round shape when fish is inflated with air or water, especially when viewed from the front

Arothron meleagris (Anonymous 1798), Guineafowl Puffer meleagrís (Gr. μελεαγρίς), guineafowl, referring to innumerable white spots on body, which resembles color pattern of a guineafowl

Arothron stellatus (Anonymous 1798), Starry Puffer Latin for studded with stars, referring to stellate (arranged in a radiating pattern like that of a star) prickles that cover its body

Abalistes stellatus (Anonymous 1798), Starry Triggerfish Latin for studded with stars, described as having small white spots on its upper body

All of these taxa were described by French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacepède (1726–1825) in the first volume of Histoire naturelle des poissons. The names of many currently valid fish taxa date to Lacepède’s five-volume work, but none to volume one. Why? Because for some reason Lacepède provided only French vernacular names …

la raie Thouin
la lophie Commerson
les Sphéroïdes
le baliste étoilé
le tétrodon méléagris
te tétrodon étoile

… not Latin names, for the taxa described in that volume

Instead, the formal Latin names date to a two-part anonymous book review published later in 1798 in a German literary magazine, Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung. The anonymous reviewer provided Latin equivalents of the French vernaculars. Those Latin equivalents were picked up by other naturalists in subsequent works and became established in the literature. For this reason, an anonymous book reviewer is credited as being the “author” of these names. Sticklers for authorial accuracy would say “Anonymous (ex Lacepède) 1798” is a more informative citation.

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11 September
Fishes by Anonymous Part I

In the early years of Linnaean zoological nomenclature, it wasn’t uncommon for names to be proposed in anonymous publications. In subsequent literature and databases, the author of these names is simply given as “Anon.” or “Anonymous” followed by the publication date. Should the name of the author be revealed through external evidence, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) recommends that it be enclosed in square brackets to show the original anonymity. Among fishes, the most prolific “anonymous” author of currently valid fish taxa is British zoologist Edward Turner Bennett (1797–1836).

• Chiloscyllium plagiosum (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – Whitespotted Bamboo Shark (Hemiscylliidae)
• Atelomycterus marmoratus (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – Coral Catshark (Atelomycteridae)
• Glaucostegus typus (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – Common Shovelnose Ray (Glaucostegidae)
• Ophichthus apicalis (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – Bluntnose Snake Eel (Ophichthidae)
• Ilisha elongata (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – Chinese Herring or Slender Shad (Pristigasteridae)
• Herklotsichthys ovalis (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – a Western Pacific shad or herring (Dorosomatidae), no types known
• Hemiarius sumatranus (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – Goat Catfish (Ariidae)
• Carangoides praeustus (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – Brownback Trevally (Carangidae)
• Ichthyscopus malacopterus (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) – a stargazer (Uranoscopidae) from the Western Central Pacific
• Chaetodon rafflesii Anonymous [Bennett] 1830 – Latticed Butterflyfish (Chaetodontidae)
• Monotaxis Anonymous [Bennett] 1830 – a genus of emperor breams (Lethrinidae) from the Indian and western Pacific Oceans

Why the anonymity? I’m not sure. The descriptions of the above-listed species all appeared in the 1830 book Memoir of the life and public services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. Raffles (1781–1826) was a British colonial official who served as the governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816. He also played a key role in the founding of modern Singapore. What’s more, Raffles was seriously interested in natural history. He employed zoologists and botanists to collect Southeast Asian specimens, paying them out of his own pocket. He described two species himself (a macaque and a mouse-deer) and was the first President of the Zoological Society of London. His natural history collection became the Raffles Museum in 1849, now known as the National Museum of Singapore. (The natural history collection has since been moved to the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum.)

The 1830 memoir was written by Raffles’ widow. It contains a long appendix, “Catalog of Zoological Specimens,” in which the many animal species collected under Raffles’ supervision are listed and provided with brief natural history accounts. Smaller and lesser-known specimens are formally described and named. Edward Turner Bennett penned the nine pages on fishes but for some reason he is not given credit in the book. Bennett named one of the fishes after Raffles, apparently saving the eponym for the loveliest one: the Latticed Butterflyfish Chaetodon rafflesii (shown above).

Not much is known about Edward Turner Bennett. His entry at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is short: “Bennett, Edward Turner (1797–1836), zoologist, was born in Hackney, Middlesex, on 6 January 1797, the son of Edward Turner Bennett (1758–1843) and his wife, Lucy, née Ball (bap. 1775, d. 1859). He was the elder brother of the botanist John Joseph Bennett (1801–1876). He practised as a surgeon in Portman Square, having been a pupil at the anatomy school operated by the surgeon Joshua Brookes. Bennett was interested in zoology and became a prominent member of the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society. In 1828 he became vice-secretary.”

Why he died so young (age 39) is not explained.

Next week, Anonymous Fishes Part II.

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4 September
Cambeva damnata Costa, Azevedo-Santos, Ottoni, Vilardo & Katz 2024

We should all dislike names such as this one. Not for the name itself. But for what the name represents.

Cambeva damnata is a new species of trichomycterid catfish that lives buried under rocks and gravel, known only from two small urban streams in Minas Gerais State of southeastern Brazil. The word “urban” is key to the species’ name … and its continued existence on this planet. At one of the collecting sites, the stream banks are heavily deforested. Homes line the banks and sewage is dumped directly into the stream. In addition, the headwaters of the catfish’s habitat are exposed to nearby mining, causing siltation, destruction of riparian vegetation, and water contamination downstream. These three factors — extremely limited range, urbanization and mining — condemn this catfish to an all but certain extinction. Hence the name:

Damnata is Latin for condemned.

What does Cambeva mean? Proposed by Katz, Barbosa, Mattos & Costa in 2018, Cambeva is a local name for trichomycterid catfishes in southern and southeastern Brazil. It is derived from the Tupi words a’kãg, meaning head, and pewa, flat, referring to their dorsally flattened heads. Cambeva damnata is the 56^th described species in the genus.

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28 August
Takifugu Abe 1949 — better late than never

It took four years for the correction to be made. I am not sure why it took so long. I found the mistake and alerted Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes (ECoF) in August 2020. The editors agreed with my finding and said it would be fixed. And then it slipped through the cracks, mine and theirs. I never made the correction in ETYFish. And ECoF didn’t post the correction until two weeks ago, on 13 August. ETYFish has since been corrected as well. Better late than never.

Takifugu is a genus of pufferfishes with around 23 species from marine and brackish waters of the northwest Pacific and Indo-Pacific oceans, including a few freshwater species in Asia. The genus was proposed (as a subgenus of Sphoeroides) by Japanese ichthyologist Tokiharu Abe (1911–1996) in 1949. Taki-fugu is the Japanese name for the type species T. oblongus. Fugu means pufferfish (literally “river pig”). The meaning of taki is unclear. According to FishBase, it means “to be cooked in liquid.” Whatever the meaning, it should be cooked carefully, since T. oblongus, like all members of the genus, contains lethal amounts of the poison tetrodotoxin.

At some point, ECoF editors changed the authorship of Takifugu from Abe 1949 to Marshall & Palmer 1950, citing ICZN Art. 13.3, which states that every new genus-group name published after 1930 must be accompanied by the fixation of a type species in the original publication (or be expressly proposed as a new replacement name) in order to be available. Since Abe 1949 allegedly did not assign a type species, the name then dates to the first taxonomists who did, in this case Marshall & Palmer 1950, who recorded T. oblongus as the type species in the Zoological Record for 1949 (published 1950).

When I consulted Abe’s original description of Takifugu while researching the etymology of its name, I noticed that T. oblongus was the only species Abe assigned to the (then) subgenus. Since Takifugu was proposed as a monotypic genus-level name, i.e., with only one species, the type species is fixed by “indication.” In other words, the type species is automatically T. oblongus. Had Abe proposed Takifugu with two or more species, he would have needed to explicitly mention which one is the type. Based on this information, “Abe 1949” should be reinstated as the author of the genus.

Why did this mistake happen in the first place? The ECoF entry for Takifugu in August 2020 (since deleted but I saved a copy) provided a clue. According to that entry, Abe had actually proposed Takifugu for more than one species 10 years earlier, in 1939, but did not assign a type. I checked Abe 1939 and was surprised to see that Takifugu was not mentioned at all. Instead, Abe had proposed the similarly-named Torafugu for two species without type fixation. (Abe indicated a type in 1950 and later decided the two genera were the same.) My guess is that whoever entered the ECoF data simply confused Torafugu with Takifugu.

Japan’s Health Ministry states that up to 50 people get sick every year by eating incorrectly prepared fugu. A “few” of these people die. To date, no one has gotten sick nor died because of incorrectly entered data at Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes and The ETYFish Project.

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21 August
Tadpole fishes

Several fish taxa have been named for their resemblance to larval frogs, or tadpoles, with their large, rounded head followed by a thin body or tail. Most of these “tadpole fishes” are named, or have names derived from, gyrinus, a Latinization of gyrí̄nos (γυρῖνος), the Greek word for tadpole.

The first piscine “gyrinus” was the Tadpole Madtom Noturus gyrinus, a small catfish (Ictaluridae) from southern Canada, and eastern and central USA.  It was named by American politician-naturalist Samuel Latham Mitchill (1764–1831) in 1817. Mitchill said the fish’s lanceolate tail resembles that of a tadpole.

Others (not an exhaustive list) include:

Gyrinichthys Gilbert 1896 — This name literally means “tadpole fish.” It’s a genus of Snailfishes (Liparidae) from the Bering Sea. American ichthyologist and fisheries biologist Charles H. Gilbert (1859­–1928) did not provide an etymology, nor an illustration, but G. minytremus (the only species), definitely resembles a tadpole in shape.

Gyrinocheilus Vaillant 1902 — The Algae Eater genus (of aquarium fame) is named for the shape of the cheilus (from cheī́los, χεῖλος), Greek for lip, having the “somewhat triangular appearance of the mouth of the tadpole” (translation).

Ebinania gyrinoides (Weber 1913) — “-oides” is a common suffix in zoological nomenclature. It’s a Latinization of the Greek eī́dos (εἶδος), meaning form or shape. German-born Dutch physician and zoologist Max Weber (1852–1937) described this Flathead (Psychrolutidae) from the Western Pacific, saying that its body is “strikingly similar to that of a frog larva” (translation).

Gyrinomimus Parr 1934 — This genus of Flabby Whalefishes (Cetomimidae) occurs in deeper waters (1280–2791 m) of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Marine biologist Albert Eide Parr (1900–1991) named it Gyrinomimus — gyrí̄nos + mimus, Latin for imitator or mimic — referring to the tadpole-like head of the type species G. myersi.

Listrura gyrinura Costa, Feltrin & Katz 2023 — This trichomycterid catfish from Brazil is named for the tadpole-like shape of its ourá (οὐρά), Greek for caudal fin, and caudal peduncle.

Careproctus ranula (Goode & Bean 1879) — Not all “tadpole fishes” are named gyrinus. This one, the Scotian Snailfish (Liparidae) from the Western North Atlantic, is named ranula, a diminutive of rana, Latin for frog, i.e., a little or baby frog, referring to its tadpole-like shape, with a thick head, quickly tapering to the tail.

Chlamydogobius ranunculus Larson 1995 — Here’s another “rana” derived name, in this case the actual Latin word for tadpole or little frog. “Gobiologist” Helen Larson named this Australian goby (Oxudercidae) after the tadpole for the “resemblance to which this rather frog-headed goby displayed to the author upon their first encounter, at the edge of a drying-up water buffalo wallow.”

Interestingly, there is one fish named “gyrinus” that is not named after a tadpole, although the names are etymologically related. In 2003, Chavalit Vidthayanon and Heok Hee Hg described Acrochordonichthys gyrinus, an akysid catfish from the Chao Phraya basin of Thailand. They say “gyrinus” is Latin for “rounded or curved,” referring to the concave posterior margin of the fish’s pectoral fin. As it turns out, “gyrinus” (tadpole) is derived from the Greek gyrós (γυρός), originally meaning rounded or curved, referring to its rounded head. 

The reason I began looking into tadpole-inspired fish names was to determine the proper spelling of Centromochlus gyrinus, an Amazonian catfish (Auchenipteridae) described by Carl H. Eigenmann (1863–1927) and William Ray Allen (1885–1955) in 1942. (Eigenmann began the manuscript, lost in aboard a train; it was located in the lost-and-found after Eigenmann’s death and completed by his student Allen.) The authors did not provide an etymology, nor did they mention “tadpole” or anything rounded or curved in their description, but their accompanying illustration (shown here) shows what could be described as a tadpole-shaped fish, especially its large head. In 1974, Dutch ichthyologist-ornithologist Gerloff F. Mees (1926–2013) reassigned Centromuchlus gyrinus to the genus Tatia. Since Tatia is a feminine genus (whereas Centromuchlus is masculine), Mees changed the spelling from gyrinus to gyrina, apparently believing the name to be an adjective and, hence, needing to agree in gender with the genus. That spelling, Tatia gyrina, has remained in usage until earlier this month, when I took a closer look.

Considering all the fish taxa named for the Latin noun gyrinus (including several not mentioned above), I believe Eigenmann & Allen named their catfish in the same manner. In addition, per ICZN 31.2.2, if the origin of a zoological name is uncertain, it is to be treated as a noun. Since the spellings of nouns are not emended to agree with the gender of the genus, I contend that Eigenmann & Allen’s original spelling should be retained. I sent these comments to the editors of Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes (ECoF) and they agreed. As 13 August 2024, ECoF changed the spelling of Tatia gyrina to Tatia gyrinus.

Finally, what’s the etymology of “tadpole”? It’s a cute word. Where did it come from? According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), it’s from the Middle English tāde or tadde, meaning toad, and the Middle English poll, meaning head or roundhead (although the latter element has been questioned since “toadhead” doesn’t quite make sense when describing a larval frog). Another English word for tadpole is pollywog, derived (per the OED) from poll, head, and wog, from wiggle. “Wiggling head” is an apt description of a tadpole.

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14 August
Oncorhynchus gorbuschka Glubokovsky & Zhivotovsky 2024

This is the first time I’ve seen a fish named this way, and I’m not sure that I like it.

Oncorhynchus gorbuscha (Walbaum 1792) is the Pink or Humpback Salmon, which occurs in coastal regions from the Northwest Territory of Canada, northwest around Alaska to Puget Sound (USA), with strays as far south as Monterey Bay (California), and in Eurasia, with spawning populations from North Korea, north to the Arctic Ocean, and west to Russia’s Lena River. It’s also been introduced into the upper Great Lakes of North America. The specific epithet gorbuscha is derived from gorbúša, a Russian word for humpback, referring to the pronounced humped back of males during their spawning migration.

Russian ichthyologists have now described a closely related cryptic species that co-occurs with O. gorbuscha in the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. Although the two species are distinguished by morphological data and genetic markers, the most striking difference between them is that new species spawns only in odd years, whereas O. gorbuscha spawns in even years.

The name of the new species is the same as the existing species except for the addition of the letter “k” — gorbuschka instead of gorbuscha. The authors say this name “emphasizes their crypticity and close phylogenetic relationship.” The common name is Rosy Salmon.

There are other examples in fishdom in which names differ by one letter (see NOTW 5 April and 12 April 2024). But these were unintentional. This, I believe, is the first time an existing name is intentionally changed by one letter to nomenclaturally link two genetically and geographically linked species.  

I appreciate what the new name is trying to say but I’m not sure I like it because the potential for confusion is great. At first glance, the names “gorbuscha” and “gorbuschka” look pretty much the same. I would have preferred something along the lines of “pseudogorbuscha,” “hemigorbuscha” or “impargorbuscha” (“odd gorbuscha”), which would have communicated the same information in a more orthographically distinctive way.

On the other hand, since the two species are nearly identical, maybe their names should be as well. In which case, the new name is perfect.

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7 August
Stiphodon chlorestes Jhuang, Dimaquibo & Liao 2024     

Here’s a lovely name for a lovely fish.

Stiphodon chlorestes is a new species of goby (Oxudercidae) from freshwater streams not far from the ocean in northern and eastern Taiwan and northern Luzon Island, Philippines. It was discovered and photographed by aquarium hobbyists in 2012, but specimens were not preserved. In 2022, two female and five male individuals were obtained and examined by ichthyologists. Morphological and molecular evidence show that the goby is distinct from any known Stiphodon, a fairly diverse genus of gobies (now 33 species), widely distributed in tropical and subtropical freshwater streams from Sri Lanka and the western coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean to southern Japan, north-eastern Australia, and French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. Stiphodon are amphidromous, which means pelagic larvae drift from freshwater into an estuary or ocean to feed and grow, and then juveniles return to freshwater to grow and reproduce (not to be confused with anadromy, in which fish are born in freshwater but migrate to the ocean as juveniles, not larvae, and then return to freshwater as adults, e.g., as Pacific salmons).

The ichthyologists — Wei-Cheng Jhuang, Al Casane Dimaquibo and Te-Yu Liao — named the goby for the hummingbird genus Chlorestes, referring to how the goby often quickly flapps its pectoral fins in the middle column of the water, like a hovering hummingbird with its rapidly flapping wings (as shown in this brief video, which the authors linked to in the “Etymology” section of their description). In addition, males have a metallic turquoise head and chartreuse body sides, similar to the plumage of the hummingbird Chlorestes cyanus.

Bird name aficionados will tell you that Chlorestes is a combination of the Greek chlōrós (χλωρός), green, and esthḗs (ἐσθής), dress, clothing or raiment, referring to the green plumage of the type species, Chlorestes notata, a hummingbird species from South America.

The goby genus Stiphodon was proposed by the German-born Dutch physician and zoologist Max Weber (1852–1937) in 1895. The name is a combination of the Greek stī́phos (στῖφος), meaning dense pile, heap or pack, and odon, Latinized from the Greek odoús (ὀδούς), meaning tooth, referring to the closely packed teeth in the upper lip of the type species, S. semoni.

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31 July
Enteromius niggie Scheepers, Bragança & Chakona 2024   

This fish’s name doesn’t mean what you think it might mean.

In 1962, English ichthyologist Peter Humphry Greenwood (1927–1995), Curator of the Fish Section of the British Museum, described a new species of goldie barb from Zimbabwe, Barbus (now Enteromius) neefi. Greenwood did not explain the meaning of the name “neefi.”

In May 2011, while working on names of the family Cyprinidae, I sent an email to Paul Skelton, the foremost authority on the freshwater fishes of southern Africa, asking if he had any idea what “neefi” means. He had more than an idea; he knew the entire story!

As explained by Dr. Skelton, Greenwood coined the name as a humorous and personal reference to ichthyologist Graham Bell-Cross (1927–1998), Zambia Department of Game and Fisheries. Bell-Cross called Greenwood “oom,” an Afrikaans word meaning uncle. Bell-Cross also collected the types of the new species and sent them to Greenwood for identification. So “Uncle” Greenwood named the species “neefi” from neef, the Afrikaans word for nephew or male cousin.

Sixty-plus years later, three researchers from NRF-South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity) — Martinus Scheepers, Pedro H. N. Bragança and Albert Chakona — took a closer look at the unusual disjunct distribution of E. neefi, divided between rivers in the northeast escarpment in South Africa and Eswatini, and tributaries of the Upper Zambezi in Zambia and southern Congo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a large geographic gap between these two populations. Using molecular and morphological methods, the researchers examined the level of divergence between the two populations and determined that specimens from the Steelpoort River in the Limpopo River system of South Africa represented a new species.

The specific epithet niggie — from the Afrikaans word for niece or female cousin — is a “symbolic representation of the historical association” between it and E. neefi, which had been considered to represent disjunct populations of the same species. The name is pronounced nᶕᶍi, with a hard guttural sound at the back of the throat.

The meaning of the generic name Enteromius, proposed by Edward Drinker Cope in 1867, is not clear. It appears to be derived from the Greek énteron (ἔντερον), meaning intestine, referring to the short alimentary canal of E. potamogalis (see NOTW, 16 July 2014).

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24 July
William D. Anderson, Jr. (1933–2024)

This week we report the sad news that ichthyologist William D. Anderson, Jr., of the Grice Marine Laboratory (College of Charleston), passed away on 17 July in Charleston, South Carolina. Over the course of a long and distinguished career, Dr. Anderson specialized in the systematics of slopefishes (Symphysanodontidae), anthias and fairy basslets (Anthiidae), splendid perches (Callanthiidae), and snappers (Lutjanidae). He described or co-described five new genera and 22 new species.

One name is especially interesting. In 2017, Dr. Anderson, along with G. David Johnson, described the Barred Groppo Grammatonotus pelipel (Callanthiidae) from Pohnpei Island, part of the Caroline Islands group, in the western Pacific Ocean. “Pelipel” is the Pohnpeian word for “tattoo” or “to tattoo,” referring to how barring on the sides of the young specimens resembles many Pohnpeian tattoos.  

In addition to his systematic work, Dr. Anderson was also superb historian, publishing important works on the history of natural history investigations in South Carolina, and two books with Theodore W. Pietsch: Collection Building in Ichthyology and Herpetology (1997) and Ichthyopedia: A Biographical Dictionary of Ichthyologists (2023).

Dr. Anderson grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. He earned a B.S. in Biology ’53, an M.S. in Biology ’55, and a Ph.D. ’60 from the University of South Carolina. After graduation he worked as an Assistant Professor at Susquehanna University, as a fishery biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, as an Associate Professor at the University of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and as a Professor at the College of Charleston. He was instrumental in starting the fish collection at the Grice Marine Lab.

Two fishes have been named in Dr. Anderson’s honor.

In 1974, Swiss ichthyologist Adolf Kotthaus described the Buck-toothed Slopefish Symphysanodon andersoni from the northwest Indian Ocean. Anderson was recognized for his work on the genus, his examination of this holotype, and for sharing his findings with Kotthaus.

In 1982, American ichthyologists John E. McCosker and James E. Böhlke described a new genus and species of snake eel, Lethogoleos andersoni, from off the coast of Anderson’s beloved South Carolina. The generic name is a combination of the Greek lḗthē (λήθη), forgetfulness, and gōleós (γωλεός), a hole or pricking, referring to the absence of several cephalic pores, unique among snake eels. The specific epithet an andersoni honors the authors’ friend, who made specimens of the eel available.

In 2022, Dr. Anderson won the Robert H. Gibbs, Jr. Memorial Award for Excellence in Systematic Ichthyology by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. The prize is awarded for “an outstanding body of published work in systematic ichthyology” to a citizen of a Western Hemisphere nation who has not received the award previously.

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17 July
Moxostoma duquesnei (Lesueur 1817)

This past Sunday, I presented a talk about The ETYFish Project at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I believe it went over well. During the Q&A session, catfish expert Mario de Pinna, Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, said my explanation of the name of the trichomycterid catfish genus Rhizosomichthys (see 24 January, below) was “ingenious.” He said he had long wondered why the fish was named after plant roots and now he had the answer. Coming from Dr. de Pinna that was high praise and the highlight of the meeting for me.

I ended my talk with a “just for fun” etymology: Since we were in Pittsburgh, I posed the question if any fishes had been named after that city. The answer is no, but one names comes close.

Before there was a Pittsburgh, there was Fort Du Quesne, a 1754 French fort at the point of land where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio River. The fort was taken over by the British, and later the Americans, and soon thereafter developed into the city of Pittsburgh. French naturalist Charles Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846) described a new species of sucker (Catostomidae) from the Ohio River, the Black Redhorse, and named it after the fort. Originally described as Catastomus duquesnii, the species is now known as Moxostoma duquesnei.

(Note: Subsequent authors changed the spelling from “duquesnii” to “duquesnei.” Normally this wouldn’t be allowed. But the unjustified latter spelling is so entrenched in the literature that, per Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes, it probably falls under the “prevailing usage” clause of the ICZN Code.)

Moxostoma duquesnei was also the “poster” bony fish of the JMIH 2024 logo, shown here. The other critters are also local. The turtle is the Wood Turtle Glyptemys insculpta. The salamander is the Eastern Hellbender Cryptobranchus alleganiensis. And the shark is actually a fossil freshwater shark, Orthocanthus sp., from the Late Carboniferous-Early Permian.

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10 July
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH)

This Sunday, 14 July, I will be speaking about The ETYFish Project at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (JMIH) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The “Joint” in the name refers to the three participating societies that come together to host the meeting: the American Elasmobranch Society, the Herpetologists’ League, and the organization I belong to, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH). This got me wondering: Has any fish taxon been named in honor of ASIH? (Plant and animals can be named for organizations just as they can be named for people.) The answer is no. But several fish taxa have been named for past presidents of ASIH, with four of these descriptions specifically mentioning their ASIH service in the etymology sections.

Nothonotus moorei (Raney & Suttkus 1964)
The Yellowcheek Darter (Percidae) is a federally endangered species known only from the Little Red River system of Arkansas (USA). It’s named in honor of zoologist George A. Moore (1899­—1998) of Oklahoma State University and past president (1961) of ASIH, for his contributions to ichthyology and particularly for his studies of fishes in the mid-southern USA.

Mooreichthys (subgenus of Etheostoma) Stephens, Johnson & Grady 2014
Also named for George A. Moore (1899-1998), this subgenus was proposed for just one species, the extinct Maryland Darter Etheostoma sellare (Percidae). Ichthys means fish.

Ernogrammus walkeri Follett & Powell 1988
The Masked Prickleback (Stichaeidae) lives in rock crevices along the Pacific coast of central and southern California (USA). Fisheries biologist Boyd W. Walker (1917–2001), University of California (Los Angeles), discovered the species and “generously permitted” the authors to describe it. He also provided an illustration (shown here). Walker served as ASIH president in 1977.

Esselenichthys carli (Follett & Anderson 1990)
The Threeline Prickleback (Cebidichthyidae) inhabits shallow waters from central California (USA) to northern Baja California (Mexico). It’s named after the authors’ friend and mentor Carl Leavitt Hubbs (1894–1979), arguably the most prominent American ichthyologist of the 20^th century. Hubbs discovered this species along with E. laurae (named after his wife Laura). Hubbs served two terms as ASIH president 1946, 1947).

Not surprisingly, all four of these descriptions appeared in the ASIH journal Copeia (now called Ichthyology & Herpetology).

Of course, most ASIH presidents have been honored in the names of fishes.Leonhard Stejneger (1851–1943)

John Treadwell Nichols (1883–1958)
Henry Weed Fowler (1878–1965)
Emmett Reid Dunn (1894–1956)
Charles M. Breder, Jr. (1897–1983)
Clifford H. Pope (1899–1974)
William K. Gregory (1876–1970)
Karl P. Schmidt (1890–1957)
George S. Myers (1905–1985)
Edward C. Raney (1909–1984)
Edward H. Taylor (1889–1978)
Reeve M. Bailey (1911–2011)
Norman E. Hartweg (1904–1964)
William A. Gosline (1915–2002)
Robert Rush Miller (1916–2003)
Ernest A. Lachner (1916–1996)
James A. Peters (1922–1972)
William Beverly Scott (1917–2014)
Robert F. Inger (1920–2019)
James W. Atz (1915–2013)
James E. Bohlke (1930–1982)
Bruce B. Collette (b. 1935)
Jay M. Savage (b. 1928)
Richard Robins (1928–2020)
Daniel M. Cohen (1930–2017)
Clark Hubbs (1921–2008)
Richard Rosenblatt (1930–2014)
Carter R. Gilbert (1930–2022)
David W. Greenfield (b. 1940)
Theodore W. Pietsch (b. 1945)
Robert C. Cashner (1942–2018)
Brooks M. Burr (b. 1950)
Lawrence M. Page (b. 1944)
Lynne R. Parenti (b. 1954)
Richard L. Mayden (b. 1955)
John G. Lundberg (b. 1942)
Carole C. Baldwin

If you’re attending JMIH this week, I hope to see you there. Here is the abstract of my brief (12 min) talk:

Revelations and revisions: 10+ years of The ETYFish Project
Since 2013, The ETYFish Project (etyfish.org) has researched and recorded the meanings behind the genus- and species-level names of Recent fishes. Right now, over 43,000 etymologies are available, plus over 550 short explanatory essays. Since its inception, The ETYFish Project has revealed the true and sometimes surprising meanings behind dozens of enigmatic or poorly known epithets. For example, the specific name of the Yellow Bullhead Ameiurus natalis does not mean “nates or buttocks” as reported in many references. It means “Christmas.” (We’ll explain why.) In addition, The ETYFish Project has uncovered several nomenclatural errors that have necessitated revisions to either the name of a fish, or to the authority to which the name dates. In short, The ETYFish Project explores and celebrates the diversity of fishes through the diversity of their names.

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3 July
Mythical moon fishes

Moon gods and other lunar legends are known from many human cultures. They’ve inspired a few fish names as well. Here are five:

Jupiaba iasy Netto-Ferreira, Zanata, Birindelli & Sousa 2009 This Brazilian characin is named for îasy, goddess of the moon in the mythology of the Tupí people of Brazil. The name refers to the fish’s crescent-shaped humeral blotch.

Serranus phoebe Poey 1851 The Tattler or Tattler Bass (Serranidae) occurs in rocky areas and sand with rubble from North Carolina (USA) to Brazil. It’s named for Phoebe, a Titaness in Greek mythology associated with the moon, referring to the white, semi-crescent-shaped bar on the fish’s belly.

Ophidion nocomis Robins & Böhlke 1959 Nookomis is the name of a grandmother in traditional stories among the indigenous Ojibwe people of North America and was made famous in Longfellow’s 1855 epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha,” in which a major female character named Nokomis falls from the moon. Its use here, in the name of a dwarf cusk eel (Ophidiidae) from the western Atlantic, refers to its pallid (i.e., moon-like) coloration.

Vanderhorstia nannai Winterbottom, Iwata & Kozawa 2005 This shrimp goby — referring to its association with shrimp burrows and not its size (30 mm) — occurs in lagoonal reefs of Palau and the Philippines. It’s named for the Sumerian moon god Sin, who had several different names corresponding to phases of the moon. The name “Nanna” represented the full moon, refers here to the moon-like lateral spots on the goby’s body.

Paravandellia luna Henschel, Baskin, Collins & Lujan 2024 “Luna” is Latin for the moon. The name of this blood-feeding candiru catfish (Trichomycteridae) refers to both its white color in life and an indigenous tale about the origin of the Amazon River basin. According to the tale, the Moon, forbidden to marry the Sun, cried so much that its tears flowed from the land to the sea. Since the sea was unable to handle such a massive amount of water, the tears carved several river channels into northern South America, including that of the Amazon.

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26 June
Cyphocharax orion Melo & Fario 2024

The authors of this new species of toothless characiform (Curimatidae) from the southern Amazon basin pack a lot of meaning into its short five-letter name. Mythology. Astronomy. Geography. Plus a hint of environmental optimism.

Quoting directly from the description:

The epithet orion derives from Ancient Greek Ὠρίων (Ōríōn) which means “heaven’s light”, or Arion, which means “warrior”. In ancient Greek mythology, Orion was a giant hunter who, after being killed by Scorpion sent by Earth mother Gaia, either Zeus or Artemis placed in the night sky as the constellation Orion. The Orion Constellation contains the Great Orion Nebula, one of the brightest nebulae in the visible sky, and the Orion’s Belt asterism formed by three bright blue supergiants: the triple star system Alnitak, the major star Alnilam, and the multiple star system Mintaka. The name Cyphocharax orion is in allusion to three major southern Amazonian rivers Madeira, Aripuanã (type-locality), and Tapajós, and symbolizes the resistance to anthropogenic pressures with strength, bravery, and universe brilliance.

I was unsure what the authors meant by the final two words, “universe brilliance,” so I emailed the senior author Bruno F. Melo, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Dr. Melo explained that “brilliance” refers to brightness, “as a new species shining through the Amazonia.”

Dr. Melo also explained that the type locality in the Rio Aripuanã basin is bordered by Madeira and Tapajós, forming a triple hydrographic system, and that the new species “appears to resist to the anthropogenic pressures in the southern Amazon.”

The etymology of Cyphocharax, proposed by Henry Weed Fowler in 1906, is: cypho-, from kyphós (Gr. κυφός), bent forwards or hunchbacked, referring to “well elevated” back of C. spilurus, “hunched, anteriorly”; Charax, typical genus of the Characiformes, from chárax (Gr. χάραξ), a pointed stake of a palisade, referring to densely packed sharp teeth, now a common root-name formation among characiform fishes.

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19 June
Myloplus sauron and Myloplus aylan

Last week, the descriptions of two new species of black-barred pacus, genus Myloplus, were published online. The name of one species joins a growing list of fish names inspired by a beloved fantasy franchise. The other name is very sad.

Myloplus sauron is known only from the Xingu basin of Brazil, where it is widely distributed. It is named for the Eye of Sauron, from book three of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, referring to its elliptical body marked with a vertical, black bar tapering toward both ends, resembling the fiery eye symbol.

Or, as Mark Sabaj (who took the photo shown here) joked on Facebook, the name honors the “cyclopic symbol of four-fingered malevolent being intent on conquering Middle Earth.”

Tolkien’s Middle Earth legendarium has been a rich source for fish names. So far, fishes have been named for Frodo Baggins, Gollum, Durin the Deathless, Azaghâl (king of the Broadbeam Dwarves), the River Bruinen, Lórien (the realm of the Elves), and Galadriel (the elf ruler of Lothlórien, or Lórien).

The second new species, Myloplus aylan, occurs in black- and clearwater rivers in the western Amazon basin of Peru and Brazil. Its name honors the late Aylan Moraes Ândrade, son of Marcelo Ândrade, one of the descriptions’ authors. Born on December 23, 2022, Aylan passed away prematurely on July 6, 2023. The epithet is a “tribute to record all the love and dedication of his parents who will never forget him.”

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12 June
Discovered by young explorers

Like many fish nerds, I spent many boyhood hours exploring nearby creeks and ponds looking for fishes and other aquatic creatures. One time I snuck through a fence surrounding a natural-gas storage tank to explore a small creek that flowed through the property. I saw a minnow-sized fish swimming near the surface. In my boyhood “young explorer” mind, I fantasized that I had discovered a new species. I attempted to catch this rare and valuable specimen, but failed. I never returned to that creek but later realized that my “new” species was probably a Mummichog Fundulus heteroclitus, a common species and baitfish near where I lived.

Here are four fish taxa named for young explorers who, unlike me, actually discovered new species.

Chatrabus hendersoni (Smith 1952)
This marine and brackish-water toadfish (Batrachoididae) is endemic to the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It’s named in honor of Master David Henderson, a schoolboy who found the holotype “thrown up by a storm” in Algoa Bay. (“Master” refers to a boy under the age of 12.)

Pelagocephalus marki Heemstra & Smith 1981
David Henderson is not the only South African schoolboy to discover a new species of fish. In 1979, Mark Pote, as described by the authors, “found an unusual little puffer fish alive in a tide pool at Port Alfred on the southeast coast of South Africa. Despite his efforts to keep it alive, the fish died the next day and was then donated to the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology” (now the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity).

Heteroclinus puellarum (Scott 1955)
This kelp blenny (Clinidae) is found in tide pools, rocky reefs and estuaries along the coasts of Tasmania and southeastern Australia. The name is a genitive plural of the Latin puella, meaning girl, referring to the three collectors of the holotype, all female: Miss B. McCormick, Miss J. Paterson and Miss B. Townsend. Unfortunately, no other information is available about them.

Tanichthys Lin 1932
The genus Tanichthys contains one of the most famous aquarium fishes in the world, the White Cloud Mountain Minnow, T. albonubes. “Ichthys,” of course, means fish. “Tan” refers to a young Boy Scout named Tan Kam Fei, who collected the holotype. Chinese ichthyologist Lin Shu-Yen (1903–1974) honored Tan “in appreciation of his interest in ichthyology and his work rousing the good spirit of the young scouts toward the study of nature.”

The specific epithet is a combination of the Latin albus, white, and nubes, cloud, referring to White Cloud (Baiyun) Mountain of Guangdong Province, China, where young Tan made his discovery. 

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5 June
Panda fishes

Three fishes have names that are in some way connected with the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) of China. Two of them are obvious. The third is a bit of a surprise.

Corydoras panda Nijssen & Isbrücker 1971 is one of the 185 species of “cory” catfishes (Callichthyidae) popular in the aquarium hobby. It occurs in the upper Amazon River basin of Peru and Ecuador. Its name refers to its black-and-white color pattern, which resembles that of the panda.

Glyptothorax panda Ferraris & Britz 2005 is a catfish (Sisoridae) from the upper Irrawaddy River drainage of Kachin State, Myanmar. The authors say its color pattern — dark saddles on a lighter body — reminded them of a panda.

Cirrhilabrus scottorum Randall & Pyle 1989 is a species fairy wrasse found on coral reefs from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the Pitcairn Islands. Its name is a plural eponym honoring Sir Peter (1909–1989) and Lady Philippa Scott (1918–2010), for their “great contribution in nature conservation. Both have a keen interest in marine life of tropic seas, particularly of fishes. They organized the dive cruise to the Coral Sea and accompanied [the authors] to Osprey Reef where [they] collected and photographed this lovely fish. They marveled at the beauty of its color, and Sir Peter painted a portrait of it.”

What’s the connection to pandas?

Sir Peter, an ornithologist and son of Antarctic explorer Robert F. Scott, was one of the founders of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, known as the World Wildlife Fund in Canada and the US), the world’s largest conservation organization. In 1961, he designed its iconic panda logo (from preliminary sketches by Gerald Watterson, a Scottish naturalist).

Scott said: “We wanted an animal that is beautiful, is endangered, and one loved by many people in the world for its appealing qualities. We also wanted an animal that had an impact in black and white to save money on printing costs.”

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29 May
The “lustful” Labrus cynaedus identified

Linnaeus listed 40 species in the wrasse genus Labrus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae (1758), the starting point of zoological nomenclature. Modern-day ichthyologists have confirmed the identities of 34 of these species. The identities of six species remain a mystery.

Make that five thanks to our resident Greek and Latin scholar, Holger Funk.

The 40th and final species on Linnaeus’ list of Labrus species is Labrus cynaedus from the Mediterranean Sea. Because there is no type specimen in a museum, no illustration, and because Linnaeus’ brief description is general and vague, no one could say for sure what fish Linnaeus was referring to. And so the name has hung in taxonomic limbo: not a valid species, but not a synonym either, technically a nomen dubium, a name of unknown or doubtful application.

Dr. Funk was curious about the meaning of cynaedus, a Neo-Latin spelling of the classical Latin cinaedus. Its meaning is quite provocative: per Lewis and Short’s Latin Dictionary, “one who practices unnatural lust.”

As it turns out, “unnatural lust” is something the ancient Greeks had quite a few words for —λάγνος, μάχλος, καταπύγων, θηλυδρίας, γυναικίας, ἀνδρόγυνος, ἀκρατής, καταφερής — rendered in dictionaries and translations as lecherous, lustful, lewd, wanton, unchaste, intemperate, incontinent, libidinous, and, according to the context, also as effeminate, homosexual or sapphic. (The Google translation simply says “horny.”)

“The Latins or Romans were no more prudish than the Greeks,” Dr. Funk tells us, “but were rhetorically a bit less voluble in this respect.” In addition to their own words for shameless or voluptuous (impudicus, impudens, libidonosus, voluptuarius, lascivus, obscenus), they introduced cinaedus, borrowed from the Greek κίναιδος. Funk recognized “cinaedus” from the works of Pliny, who used it to describe a sea fish. Funk then traced the ichthyological usage of “cinaedus” from Pliny through the Renaissance to Linnaeus — a “remarkable nomenclatural odyssey” he calls it — and was able to connect Labrus cynaedus to another species on Linnaeus’ Labrus list, the Brown Wrasse Labrus merula. The connections go like this:

Based on the “Labrus luteus, dorso purpuro, pinna a capite ad caudam continua” of Artedi 1738, which was based on various historical sources, including the “Cynædus” of Rondeletius 1554, the “Alphestes vel Cynaedus” of Gesner 1558, the “Cinædus Rondeletii” of Aldrovandi 1638, the “Cinædus” of Jonston 1649, the “Alphestes” of Charleton 1668, the “Alphestes sive Cinedus” of Willughby 1686, and the “Alphestes sive Cinædus” of Raius (John Ray) 1713.

The next (June) edition of Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes will, for the first time, recognize Labrus cynaedus as a junior synonym of Labrus merula.

But why “cinaedus”? What about this fish inspired such a lewd or lustful name?

You’ll notice that some of the Renaissance references listed above also include the Greek word ἀλφηστής, or alphēstḗs. “That name originally denoted a laborious, enterprising man,” Dr. Funk tells us, “but later also denoted someone who appeared to be sexually inappropriately active or displayed behavioral problems. In this sense the name was referred to a specific fish. Athenaeus, an author from the 3rd century CE, and one of the most important sources for ancient descriptions of fishes, collected early evidence.” He describes the ἀλφησταί (plural of ἀλφηστής) as follows:

And they say that they are usually caught in couples, and that one is always found following at the tail of the other; and therefore, from the fact of one following close on the tail of the other, some of the ancients call men who are intemperate (ἀκρατής) and libidinous (καταφερής) by the same name.

Our guess is that this behavior, if accurately described, is territorial, not sexual. But to the Greeks and Romans, it was something lewd or salacious. Aldrovandi, a celebrated Renaissance naturalist, outdid them all by nicknaming the fish “sodomita,” the name of an actor in crude ancient comedies who showed off his sexual organ. And so Labrus cinaedus was given a name of very ill repute.

A final note: Most wrasses are protogynous hermaphrodites, with females usually changing to males as they age and grow, or in the absence of males. While the ancients may have viewed hermaphrodism with raised eyebrows, this behavior was not known until the 1930s.

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22 May
Leprosy and fishes

Several fishes have names associated with leprosy. I would not be writing about them here if it weren’t for the 1959 religious epic film Ben-Hur. When I first saw the film as a little kid in the early 1970s, I was freaked out by the scenes in the “Valley of Lepers.” Although the leprosy of Miriam and Tirzah is never directly shown — the disease is seen mainly through the reactions of those around them — I could only imagine how repulsive and contagious it must be to force its victims to hide their faces and live in eerie caves far removed from the general population. What’s more, in the Bible leprosy is both a metaphor for sin, starting out small and then spreading to other sins, and a punishment for sin. I have since learned that biblical and Hollywood depictions of leprosy are far from medically accurate, but their images left an impression on my young mind that I remember to this day.

The name “leprosy” is derived from the Greek leprós, meaning scaly, scabby, rough or mangy, alluding to the disfiguring skin sores that appear on its victims’ arms, legs and body. That adjective is the specific name of the Spiny Squirrelfish Sargocentron lepros (Allen & Cross 1983), a nocturnal reef-associated denizen of the tropical Indo-Pacific. The fish’s body texture is quite rough, imparted by its strongly serrate scale margins.

A latinization of the Greek leprós forms the specific epithet of Xenopoclinus leprosus Smith 1961, a clinid (Clinidae) from South Africa. Smith did not provide an etymology but the name almost certainly refers to both its sides and belly “sparsely covered with minute thin cycloid scales, nowhere imbricate or regular.” Its unfortunate common name in South Africa is Leprous Platanna-Klipfish.

Alphos (from the Greek alphós, meaning dull white) is a form of non-contagious leprosy causing dull white or silvery spots or lesions on the skin. Leprosy is mentioned in the original description of Chromis alphus Randall 1988, a damselfish (Pomacentridae) from the eastern Indian Ocean and western Pacific: “Named alpha from the Greek alphos, white-spotted, as from leprosy, in reference to the pale spots on the head and body.”

Leprosy indirectly led to the discovery of Pardiglanis tarabinii Poll, Lanza & Romoli Sassi 1972, a large claroteid catfish from Somalia and Kenya. Giovanni Tarabini Castellani (1910–1992) dedicated 40 years of his life to the study of leprosy. For 18 years he served as the director of a leprosarium at Gelib, Somalia. While there, he obtained a large (64 cm TL) catfish with an extremely large, rounded head from a local fisherman. He forwarded it to the University of Firenza in Italy, where it was confirmed to represent both a new genus and species. It was named in Tarabini’s honor.

Leprosy also indirectly led to the discovery of Aphyosemion musafirii van der Zee & Sonnenberg 2011, a killifish from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is named in honor of Jean Musafiri coordinator for the national tuberculosis and leprosy control program in the Province Orientale Occidentale, the forest area around Kisangani, near where this killifish occurs. The name Musafiri means “traveler” in Swahili and, indeed, Musafiri “travels around the area under very difficult circumstances, covering enormous distances by jeep, motorised canoe or small motorcycle,” helping the people of his province “in spite of the very difficult living conditions and the atrocities of the war.” Musafiri’s efforts also made it to collect the holotype of this species (and that of Fenerbahce devosi) by A. Van Deun (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp) during an external evaluation visit of the tuberculosis/leprosy program.

According to the World Health Organization, leprosy is a “neglected” tropical disease that still occurs in more than 120 countries, with more than 200,000 new cases reported every year. But the elimination of leprosy as a global public health problem (defined as prevalence of less than 1 per 10,000 population) was achieved in 2000 and in most countries by 2010.

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15 May
Microdous scharpfi Endruweit 2024

For the past 10 years, ichthyologist Marco Endruweit and myself have maintained a mutually beneficial email correspondence. He helps me with Chinese and Vietnamese literature. I help him acquire publications he cannot easily find himself. We also share notes on the names of Chinese and Vietnamese fishes. In 2018, he asked me for my “affiliation.” He said he was writing a book on Chinese fishes and joked, “I am running out of names for new species.” Last week I found out why he asked.

Earlier this year, Marco Edruweit published the book he had been working on: Fishes of the Red River – Perciformes, Synbranchiformes. (The Red River flows for 1150 km with about 650 km in China and 500 km in Vietnam.) In it he proposes five new genera, one new subgenus, 29 new species, and one replacement name. One of the new species is named after me.

Microdous scharpfi is a freshwater sleeper (Odontobutidae) that occurs in the sluggish waters of three Red River tributaries — Lô, Cầu and Đây — from the Lô River in Wenshan Province, China, south to the deltaic provinces of northern Vietnam. It differs from M. chalmersi and M. namxamensis, in part, by having a scaled (vs. naked) prepectoral area and by the arrangement of mecanoreceptive neuromasts on its head. Described from preserved specimens collected in 2013, its life coloration is not described. X-ray imaging indicates it feeds on snails.

The genus Microdous — proposed by Li, He, Jiang, Liu & Li in 2018 — is named for the slender and tiny (micro-, small) teeth (odous) on its vomer. The etymology of the specific epithet reads: “Named after Christopher Scharpf, the ETYFish Project, who helped in countless occasions with literature and etymologies; scharpfi, a patronymic noun in genitive case.”

As I said in the 16 August 2023 NOTW for Argyripnus scharpfi, I’ve been fascinated by fish names ever since opening a copy of William T. Innes’ Exotic Aquarium Fishes sometime in the early 1970s and discovering that the Black Mollies and Coolie Loaches I kept in a 10-gallon aquarium had formal “scientific” names. I was 10 or 11 at the time. I never imagined that in my 60s I would be honored in the name of a fish. And now it’s happened twice!

Thank you, Marco, for “running out of names for new species” and naming one after me. 😊

Fishes of the Red River – Perciformes, Synbranchiformes is for sale directly from the author on eBay.

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8 May
Sleepy, sluggish and lazy

Some fishes are named for the swiftness of their swimming. These fishes are named for how slowly, or infrequently, they move.

Sleeper Sharks, Somniosus Lesueur 1818
Sleeper Sharks derive their generic name from the Latin word for “sleepy.” Lesueur proposed the name because he surmised these sharks are slow or sluggish because of their smaller fins compared with other sharks. Lesueur wasn’t off the mark. In 2016, researchers recorded the average groundspeed and waterspeed of the Pacific Sleeper Shark S. pacificus at 0.21 and 0.25 m s⁻¹, respectively, exhibiting the slowest comparative swimming speed among fish species adjusted for size.

Gobiomorus dormitor Lacepède 1800
The specific epithet of the Bigmouth Sleeper (Eleotridae) is Latin for “one who sleeps.” The name is a direct translation of “dormeur,” French for “sleeper,” a common name for the fish used in the early 19th-century French colonies of South America. Cuvier and Valenciennes state that dormeurs are “usually lazy fish, which stand quietly in the mud or rock holes” (translated from the French).  

Icelus Krøyer 1845
The Scaled Sculpin (Cottidae) genus Icelus comprises 18 species from the northern Pacific and North Atlantic oceans. The name alludes to Icelus, son of Hypnus, the Greek god of sleep, referring to the “sluggishness” (translation) of various northern sculpins. [Footnote: The name of the Colombian characin Bryconamericus icelus Dahl 1964 has a different etymology, derived from the Greek íkelos, like or resembling, referring to its superficial resemblance to B. scopiferus (=Eretmobrycon emperador).]

Pink Cusk-eel, Genypterus blacodes (Forster 1801)
This commercially important cusk-eel (Ophidiidae) occurs in the oceans around southern Australia, Chile, Brazil, and New Zealand (except the east coast of Northland) at depths of 22–1,000 m. Its specific name is a combination of the Greek blakos, meaning dull, slow or doltish, and the suffix –odes, Neo-Latin from the Greek eī́dos form or shape. Forster described it as “very voracious, but torpid and lazy, resting on the rocky bottom of the sea” (translation).

Yawning, Poromitra oscitans Ebeling 1975
This member of the Bighead family (Beryciformes: Melamphaidae) occurs in the Indo-Pacific region at a depth of 643–5320 m. “Oscitans” is Latin for listless, sluggish, lazy or negligent. Ebeling selected this name for the fish’s “presumed sluggish nature.” Interestingly, the common name Yawning does not refer to sleepiness but to the yawn-like appearance of its large mouth.

Breitensteinia cessator Ng & Siebert 1998
This catfish (Akysidae) is found among woody debris in small to medium-sized rivers in the Batang Hari and Tulangbawan River drainages in Sumatra and the Kapuas River drainage in western Borneo. Its name is Latin for “idle fellow,” referring to its sluggish nature. Other species of the genus are said to be lethargic in aquaria.

Piglet Sucker, Gouania pigra (Nardo 1827)
Members of this clingfish (Gobiesocidae) genus are the only vertebrates known to inhabit European intertidal gravel beaches. They use their thoracic adhesive disc to cling to surfaces as waves crash over them. The Latin adjective piger (feminine, pigra) means slow, lazy, reluctant or slothful. Nardo did not explain the significance of the name, but in a follow-up publication published later in 1827, he called the species “lazy”: “Nature granted them an organ capable of keeping them adherent to the rocks, since animals of a peaceful and lazy nature, such as they are, would not have been able to resist the vehemence of the waves, and therefore on dry land, transported to the shore, they would necessarily have perished there” (translated from the Italian). [Footnote: The delightful common name “Piglet Sucker” derives from porco, one of its local names in Italy.]

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1 May
Monotocheirodon duda Carvalho, Thomaz, Urbano-Bonilla & Prada-Pedreros 2024

In my essay “A Fish-Centric Guide to Nomenclature”, I describe how most zoological epithets fall into one of eight broadly defined categories: Descriptive. Biological. Systematic. Anthropocentric. Commemorative. Toponymic. Vernacular. Nonsensical. I also note that some names combine elements from two categories. Monotocheirodon duda is a great example of a “combo” name.

Monotocheirodon duda is a recently described characin from the upper Guayabero River, Orinoco basin, of Colombia. It is distinguished in part by its “remarkable” sexual characteristics of adult males, which possess an enlarged urogenital papilla in contact with the first anal-fin unbranched ray and a highly modified anal fin with enlarged and distally elongated first and second branched anal-fin rays, forming a gonopodium-like structure.

The species is named for its type locality, the Río Duda Meta Department, Colombia, and elsewhere in the Río Duda drainage, where it occurs. This makes it a toponymic name — names that refer to places (e.g., country, river, town) or geographic areas.

But it’s also named for its phylogenetic placement, which makes “duda” a systematic name as well. “Duda” is Spanish for “doubt,” in this case reflecting the authors’ provisional placement of the species in the genus Monotocheirodon, an “assumption that needs further evaluation.” Unlike other known species of Monotocheirodon, M. duda has an adipose fin, and its distribution is “largely disjunct” from its congeners.

“Duda” has been used once before in the name of a fish, from a different country in a different language. In 1822, Francis Hamilton described a catfish, Silurus duda, from the Kusi River of India. The name is derived from its local monicker, Dudha pabda. The species is now considered a junior synonym of Ompok bimaculatus (Bloch 1794).

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24 April
What were they thinking?

Some fish names are misnomers, named for attributes the authors mistakenly believed the fish possessed. But some misnomers are just inexplicably wrong. In fact, the names run counter to the descriptions that accompanied their proposals. Here are five examples.

Cruriraja durbanensis (von Bonde & Swart 1923) — The Smoothnose Leg Skate occurs in the southeastern Atlantic Ocean off western South Africa. The type locality is Hondeklip Bay, a coastal village in the Namakwa district of South Africa’s Northern Cape province. The specific epithet “durbanensis” indicates that the skate is named for Durban, South Africa. Trouble is, Durban is over 1,600 km away, on the eastern coast of the country, on the Indian (not Atlantic) Ocean. The skate is not known to occur in Durban, yet its name suggests it does. What were von Bonde & Swart thinking?

Nematabramis alestes (Seale & Bean 1907) — This distant relative of rasboras and danios (Danionidae) is endemic to Mindanao, Philippines. Its name is derived from the Greek alestḗs (ἀλεστής), which means miller or grinder. Fishes with molariform teeth — used for crushing and grinding — are sometimes given this name (e.g., the African tetra genus Alestes). Yet the authors describe its pharyngeal teeth (the only teeth cyprinoids have) as “without evident grinding surface.” What were Seale & Bean thinking?

Nangra robusta Mirza & Awan 1973 — The Latin adjective robustus/robusta has an interesting etymological history. Originally it meant “of oak or oaken” and, by extension, hard, firm or solid. Ichthyologists often use it to describe fat, stout or full-bodied fishes. But this sisorid catfish from the Indus River drainage of Pakistan is actually quite slim. In fact, the authors describe it as “slim-bodied” and “small-sized.” What were Mirza & Awan thinking?

Diaphus brachycephalus Tåning 1928 — The Shorthead Lanternfish (Myctophidae) occurs circumglobally in tropical and temperate seas (but not the eastern Pacific). Its common name mirrors it scientific: brachys, latinized Greek for short, and cephalus, latinized Greek for head. But the fish’s head is actually quite large relative to its standard length (34.8%). In fact, based on my analysis of head and standard-length measurements, D. brachycephalus has either the largest or second-largest head of the 14 Diaphus species Danish ichthyologist Åge Vedel Tåning (1890–1958) mentioned in his paper (ranging from 27.0–35.0%). So what was Tåning thinking?

Hypoplectrus chlorurus (Cuvier 1828) — The Yellowtail Hamlet (Serranidae) occurs in the Western Atlantic from Texas south to Venezuela, including the western and southern Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. Its common name refers to its bright yellow tail. Cuvier mentioned the yellow tail in his description (“caudale jaune”). In fact, it’s the fish’s most obvious and distinguishing feature. And yet he named it chlorurus, a combination of the Greek chlōrós (χλωρός), green, and ourá (Gr. οὐρά), tail. What was Cuvier thinking?

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17 April
Rosario LaCorte (1929–2024)

On April 8, aquarist Rosario La Corte died quietly in his home surrounded by family. “With his passing,” wrote fellow aquarist Joseph Ferdenzi, “the aquarium hobby lost one of the greatest aquarists of this generation or any generation. It truly represents the end of an era that none of us will ever see again.”

In the 1950s, Rosario became one of the few aquarists to spawn the Neon Tetra Paracheirodon innesi. This made him famous in the aquarium world, leading to countless speaking engagements at aquarium clubs and conventions. He spawned many other fishes as well, many for the first time. Hobbyists from all over the world visited his fish house, a converted two-car garage. One such visitor was ichthyologist Stanley Weitzman (1927–2017) of the Smithsonian Institution. They became close friends. In fact, making friends and forging lifelong friendships seems to have been a hallmark of Rosario’s life. He went on numerous collecting trips to South America, where he acquired species never before seen in the aquarium hobby. Two of these species, also new to science, were named in his honor:

Nematobrycon lacortei Weitzman & Fink 1971 — The Rainbow Tetra of Colombia, named in honor of Rosario La Corte for his “long interest in characoids” (he also donated specimens to Weitzman from his fish-breeding operation)

Maratecoara lacortei (Lazara 1991) — An annual killifish from Estado do Goiás, Brazil, named in honor of Rosario LaCorte, who discovered this killifish with fish trader Luis de Camargo Costa and provided photographs

I could write more about Rosario’s life and contributions to the aquarium hobby, but I would just be repeating what his friend Joseph Ferdenzi said in this well-illustrated remembrance.

I recommend Rosario’s delightful memoir, An Aquarist’s Journey. What’s clear is that Rosario was fully committed to everything in his life: his fishes, his family, his country, his faith, his fellow aquarists, and to just being a great human being.

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10 April
One letter makes a difference (again)

In previous NOTWs, I’ve been amused with names that would be homonyms — with the senior name replacing the junior — if not for minor differences in their spelling:

Labiobarbus and Labeobarbus
Barbodes and Barboides
Symphurus plagiusa and Symphurus plagusia
Neolamprologus leleupi and Neolamprologus leloupi

Here are two more examples, both made possible by recent taxonomic revisions in which two old synonyms were dusted off and revalidated.

Thryssa purava (Hamilton 1822) and Thryssa porava Bleeker 1849

In 1822, Scottish physician-naturalist Francis Hamilton-Buchanan (1762–1829) published An Account of the Fishes Found in the River Ganges and its Branches, the first comprehensive study of Indian fishes. Among the 271 species of fishes Hamilton proposed in the monograph is Clupea (now Thryssa) purava, an anchovy from the Ganges estuaries. He derived the specific name from Peddah Poorawah (“Great Purava”), a local Indian name for anchovies or other herring-like fishes reported (but not scientifically named) in an earlier publication, Descriptions and Figures of Two Hundred fishes; Collected at Vizagapatam on the Coast of Coromandel (1803) by Scottish surgeon-naturalist Patrick Russell (1726–1805).

Twenty-seven years later, Dutch army surgeon and ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker (1819–1878) described an anchovy from the Madura Straits of Indonesia. It is not clear whether Bleeker at the time was familiar with (or had access to) Hamilton’s 1822 work. But he was familiar with Russell’s, because he said that Peddah Poorawah inspired the name Thryssa porava. Note that Bleeker spelled the name with an “o” rather than the “u” as in Hamilton’s purava.

Bleeker’s Thryssa porava had been considered a junior synonym of Thryssa mystax (Bloch & Schneider 1801) until it was revalidated by Hata and Lavoué (as Thrissina porava) earlier this year. Although two species in the same genus cannot have the same specific name — and although purava and porava are derived from the same word and mean the same thing — the one-letter difference in their spellings is all it takes to avoid homonymy.

Pseudambassis Bleeker 1874 and Pseudoambassis Castelnau 1878

Bleeker is also involved in this case of near homonymy, but this time his name came first.

Pseudo– is a common prefix in both generic and specific names. It is derived from the Greek pseúdēs (ψεύδης), meaning false, and is usually employed to denote a taxon that could easily be mistaken for another. Ambassis Cuvier 1828 is a genus of Asiatic glassfishes or glass perchlets, noted for their transparent or semi-transparent bodies. (See NOTW 21 March 2018 for more on this etymologically interesting name.) Pseudambassis, proposed by Bleeker in 1874, therefore means “false Ambassis,” i.e., although this genus may superficially resemble Ambassis, such an appearance is false. Note that Bleeker did not include the “o” in “pseudo-.”

Four years later, French naturalist Francis de Laporte de Castelnau (1810–1880) came up with the same name while studying the glass perchlets of Australia. Castelnau, exploring in Terra Australis, probably had not seen Bleeker’s account, published in the Netherlands. Castelnau said his Pseudoambassis (note spelling with the “o” that Bleeker did not include) differed from Ambassis in lacking a recumbent pre-dorsal spine. Australian ichthyologist Gilbert Percy Whitley (1903–1975) and his colleague Tom Iredale (1880–1972), incorrectly believing Pseudoambassis to be preoccupied by Pseudambassis, renamed it Blandowskiella in 1932. Subsequent ichthyologists sunk both Pseudoambassis and Blandowskiella into the synonymy of Ambassis.

Last September, a team of researchers led by Siti Zafirah Ghazali of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu studied the phylogeny and biogeography of the family Ambassidae. They proposed a number of taxonomic changes, including the revalidation of Castelnau’s Pseudoambassis to include five Australian and New Guinea species formerly in Ambassis (agassizii, agrammus, elongata, jacksoniensis, macleayi).

The subtle difference between Pseudambassis and Pseudoambassis is easy to overlook. I did so the first several times I read Ghazali et al.’s paper. I was confused by their taxonomic changes until I noticed the one-letter difference.

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3 April
Tilurus gegenbauri Kölliker 1853

One of the early challenges faced by ETYFish was what to do with Species inquirendae. These are species of doubtful identity needing further investigation. (That’s what inquirendae means; it’s Latin for “to be investigated.”) In most cases, they’re older names that predate some of the more restrictive requirements of the ICZN Code. Many are deemed as validly described species with available names but without a type specimen in a museum for taxonomists to examine, compare with related taxa, and perhaps rule on their taxonomic status. In addition, many Species inquirendae are based on larval or juvenile specimens; the adults may await discovery and description or may have already been described. And in some cases, Species inquirendae are superficially described, often utilizing characters shared by one or more related species. Their simply isn’t enough information to accept the species nor place it into synonymy. So Species inquirendae languish in a kind of taxonomic limbo.

Since going online in 2013, The ETYFish Project has provided the etymologies of Species inquirendae and included them in the genus and species counts on the Table of Contents page. My rationale for including them is two-fold. First, I think it’s better to over- rather than under-represent diversity. No one’s written to us complaining that we have too many names in the database! But readers do occasionally let me know when a name is missing. And second, since Species inquirendae are “pending,” it’s useful to include their etymologies just in case new research reveals they warrant recognition. Such entries clearly indicate their “Sp. inq.” status and that their inclusion is provisional. (Likewise, I will delete Species inquirendae if new research reveals they are synonyms.)

Since many taxonomic databases, including Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes, do not count Species inquirendae as “valid” species, I will begin isolating them in our Table of Contents counts in the not-too-distant future.

All of which brings us to a Species inquirenda that has intrigued me since I began investigating fish names in 2009 — a fish that, as far as I can tell, has not been mentioned in an ichthyological publication since 1993: Tilurus gegenbauri.

Tilurus gegenbauri was described as both a new genus and species of leptocephalus (larval eel) by Swiss embryologist and histologist Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (1817–1905) in 1853. The holotype (now lost) was captured in the Mediterranean Sea off Messina, Sicily, Italy. “Circumstantial evidence” published by Smithsonian eel expert David G. Smith in 1989 suggests that the fish is not a true eel (Anguilliformes), but a deep-sea spiny eel (Notacanthiformes, Notacanthidae).

The generic name Tilurus is a combination of tílos (Gr. τίλος), anything plucked, shred or fiber, and ourá (Gr. οὐρά), tail, referring to its tail terminating in a thread. Kölliker named the fish in honor of German comparative anatomist Carl (or Karl) Gegenbaur (1826–1903), who collected and/or provided the holotype.

Since only two notacanthids are known to occur in the Mediterranean — Notacanthus bonaparte Risso 1840 and Polyacanthonotus rissoanus (De Filippi & Verany 1857) — it would be easy to hypothesize that Tilurus gegenbauri is the larval form of one of them. If the latter, then both Tilurus and T. gegenbauri would be senior synonyms. Since a specimen labeled as T. gegenbauri is at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris), maybe a molecular analysis can sort it all out. Tilurus specimens are also known from the eastern North Atlantic, Bermuda, and the Gulf Stream off northern Florida, presumably within the range of Polyacanthonotus rissoanus.

There are no published images of Tilurus gegenbauri, but I have found two that come close. One shows T. trichiurus (Cocco 1829), provisionally treated as a congeneric leptocephalus. The other is a sketch of a typical Tilurus head, showing its diagnostic short snout and round eye.

For now, the name Tilurus gegenbauri — both species and genus — remain a convenient label for an otherwise unidentifiable larval fish.

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27 March
Amen fo eth Kwee

Boraras Kottelat & Vidthayanon 1993 The name of this genus of minute freshwater fishes (Danionidae) from Southeast Asia is an anagram of the closely related genus Rasbora, which differ by their reversed ratio of abdominal and caudal vertebrae.

Ricola Isbrücker & Nijssen 1978 Ricola macrops, a loricariid catfish from Argentina and Uruguay, is the only member of its genus. Its name is an anagram of the Latin lorica, a leather cuirass (referring to bony plates on back and sides), and the root of Loricaria, with which this genus is “very similar” in all external characters except for barbel structure and shape and number of teeth.

Polymetme thaeocoryla Parin & Borodulina 1990 The name of this bioluminescent “lightfish” (Phosichthyidae) from the northeast Atlantic Ocean is anagram of the specific name of Polymetma corythaeola, its closest relative.

Kumba Marshall 1973 In 1973, British ichthyologist N.B. Marshall named a new genus of grenadiers or rattails (Macrouridae) after the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBAUK), whose research vessel Sarsia dredged the type species. But “mbauk” or “mbaotuk” are extremely difficult to pronounce. Marshall solved the problem by playfully rearranging the acronym to form “Kumba.”

Erotelis Poey 1860 The genus Eleotris includes 27 species of spiny-cheek sleepers (Eleotridae) from tropical and subtropical ocean waters around the world. The closely related genus Erotelis, an anagram of Eleotris, includes four closely related species from fresh, marine, and brackish coastal waters of North and South America.

Aetapcus Scott 1936 The Warty Prowfish Aetapcus maculatus, endemic to coastal waters of southern Australia, is the only member of its genus. Australian ichthyologist E. O. G. Scott proposed Aetapcus as a subgenus of Pataecus in which the snout inclines backward instead of forward. It has since been elevated to full genus. Aetapcus is an anagram of Pataecus.

Culaea Whitley 1950 Culaea is a near anagram of Eucalia Jordan 1876 (missing the “i”), the original name for this stickleback genus but preoccupied in butterflies. The original name translates as eu-, a Greek prefix (well, good or very), and calia (Neo-Latin from the Greek kalia), bird nest, referring to the nest-building habits of sticklebacks.

See the 2 August 2017 Mena fo het Ewek for four anagrammatic toadfish names coined by South African ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith.

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20 March
John D. McPhail (1934–2023)

I recently learned that Canadian ichthyologist John D. McPhail passed away last summer. He was an expert on the fishes of northwestern North America and, most famously, the difficult taxonomy of benthic and limnetic sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) of southwestern British Columbia. He made these sticklebacks a model system in which to test two fundamental questions in biology: What exactly is a “species,” and how do they arise?

Two of his books grace my bookshelf:

Freshwater Fishes of Northwestern Canada and Alaska, authored with Casimir C. Lindsey, was published in 1970. Although 44 years old and quite out-of-date, it’s still a fascinating read, if only for the appreciation you gain of how difficult it must be to explore the waters of the coldest, most desolate, and least-populated two million square miles in North America. McPhail and Lindsey repeatedly express just how little science knows about the fishes of the “deep North,” as in this passage on the Deepwater Sculpin Myoxocephalus thompsoni: “We have twice kept captive deepwater sculpins in aquaria for 2 weeks before they died; during this time they were timid and passive, refusing even live food. How this little fish lives, what its abundance is, and what role it plays in the ecosystem of deep northern lakes, are literally deep and dark secrets” (p. 323).

Thirty-seven years later, McPhail wrote The Freshwater Fishes of British Columbia (2007), illustrated by his daughter Diana. It is one of the best “Fishes of …” books ever.

In cryptozoology circles, McPhail (along with Lindsey) is noted for his efforts to confirm the existence of the elusive “Popcorn Fish.” So named for the large popcorn-like bumps on its head, the fish was first reported in 1953 from a small lake in a remote, isolated region of the Yukon. Knowing that a number of unique insects, mosses and alpine flowers in that region survived the ice age 10,000 years ago, McPhail and Lindsey believed there was precedent that the Popcorn Fish could be real. They did not find any specimens, but they did convince authorities to officially name the unnamed lake Popcornfish Lake. So, in a way, the Popcorn Fish lives on.

As for fishes that actually exist, McPhail described two new species, both from Alaska. In 1965, he described the Smallmouth Ronquil Bathymaster leurolepis, named for its smooth and embedded scales (from the Greek leurós, smooth, and lepís, scale). In 1970, he named the Pearly Prickleback Bryozoichthys marjorius. The specific epithet is both a variant of the Latin margarita, pearl, referring to its distinctive pearly-white coloration, and a matronym in honor of McPhail’s wife Marjorie.

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13 March
Paul Humann (1937–2024)

Diver, underwater photographer, author, and conservationist Paul Humann passed away at the age of 86 on 5 February at his home in Davie, Florida. His Reef ID Guides of Florida, the Caribbean and Bahamas, are familiar to many scuba divers and marine biologists.

Two fishes are named in honor of Humann. In 2010, eel expert John C. McCosker described Ophichthus humanni, a snake eel from Vanuatu, crediting Humann for “generously” aiding ichthyologists with his photographs and observations. Two years later, Gerald R. Allen and Mark V. Erdmann described Cirrhilabrus humanni, a fairy wrasse from Indonesia. Humann, along with fellow photographer-authors Ned and Anna DeLoach, were the first to sight this wrasse. Allen and Erdmann said, “Paul has been an important contributor to our knowledge of reef fishes through the publications of his company New World Publications, Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida.”

An ornate cup coral, Coenocyathus humanni, from the tropical Western Atlantic, bears his name as well.

Humann grew up far from the ocean, in Wichita, Kansas. He graduated in biology at Wichita State University and studied law at Washburn Law School in 1964. During law school, he learned how to dive, take underwater photos, and fly a plane. (When did he have time to study?) After seven years working for a large law firm, he was made a partner.

In 1971, Humann quit the law firm to become owner and captain of Cayman Diver, a liveaboard dive-cruiser. He used his pilot’s license to scout potential reef-sites. While diving with his customers, Humann began photographing Caribbean marine life. In 1980, he moved to Florida and began publishing his photographs as ID guides for divers. In 1988, he joined Ned DeLoach to become co-editor of Ocean Realm magazine. This was the beginning of a long business partnership, as they published a total of 14 books starting Reef Fish Identification, Reef Creature Identification and Reef Coral Identification – Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas. 

Humann and DeLoach went on to start the Florida-based REEF Reef Environmental Education Foundation in 1990. Its aim is to help protect ocean biodiversity through citizen-science, education and partnership with the scientific community. REEF’s volunteer divers and snorkelers have compiled what is said to be the world’s biggest fish-sighting database.

Humann was inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame in 2007.

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6 March
Sturisoma lyra (Regan 1904)

English ichthyologist Charles Tate Regan (1878–1943) of the Natural History Museum (London) described 34 new species in his 1904 monograph on loricarioid catfishes. All but six of the names he proposed remain valid and in use today. Regan did not provide etymologies in his descriptions, but in most cases he provided enough information to tease out a reasonable explanation for the name. For one species, Oxyloricaria (now Sturisoma) lyra, he did not.

Here is the complete description:

Closely allied to the preceding species [Oxyloricaria robusta, now Sturisoma barbatum], but with a smaller eye (diameter 9-11 times in the length of head), more numerous scutes, 36-37 in a longitudinal series, 20-21-1-16, the anal plate bordered anteriorly by 3 which are again bordered by 3 or 4, instead of by 5, and the body more slender, the width at the level of the last anal ray 4-5 times in the distance from the latter to the caudal. Olivaceous, dorsal and pectoral with dark spots on the rays; anal sometimes with a blackish tip; lower lobe of caudal with an oblong blackish patch.

Total length 250 mm.

Ten specimens from the Rio Jurua [middle Amazon River basin, Brazil], collected by Dr. Bach, had been referred by Boulenger to L. rostrata, in his account of the Bach Collection.

Regan named the species lyra, Latin for lyre, a small U-shaped, hand-held harp used especially in ancient Greece (shown here). Regan did not mention a lyre nor anything lyre-like in his description, so the meaning of the name remained a mystery to me for many years. Recently, however, I had occasion to revisit the name, as I often do with “cold case” etymologies I had not solved. When I compared Regan’s written description with the illustration created by the Natural History Museum’s in-house lithographer J. Green, I noticed a detail I had overlooked:

Green had artfully arranged the catfish’s long caudal-fin filaments*, both extending away from the tail and then curling back towards it. With some imagination, you can see that the shape of the tail resembles the shape of a lyre.

Is this what Regan had in mind when he named the fish? That’s impossible to say for sure. But he gave it an elegant-sounding name. And the artistic license Green took in rendering the caudal fin is an elegant touch.

* Filaments such as those of Sturisoma lyra develop in various Loricariidae, usually subfamily Loricariinae, but also in Hypostomus nematopterus (subfamily Hypostominae) as fragile extensions of some fin rays. They probably play a role in matters of taste and touch (Isaäc J. H. Isbrücker, pers. comm.). They are recorded in many descriptions but it appears no one has published a special study about them.

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28 February
Cyprinella analostana Girard 1859

This Saturday, I am giving a talk about The ETYFish Project to the Potomac Valley Aquarium Society in Fairfax, Virginia, USA. “Potomac Valley” refers, of course, to the Potomac River, which flows for 652 km from the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia into the Chesapeake Bay of Maryland. More famously, the river forms part of the border between Washington, D.C. and Virginia. This prompted me to wonder:

Has a fish been named for the Potomac River?

The answer is no. But one comes very close.

In 1859, French ichthyologist Charles Girard (1822–1895) described the Satinfin Shiner Cyprinella analostana from Rock Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River that flows through Washington, D.C. Girard was quite familiar with the area. He worked at the Smithsonian Institution and earned his M.D. from Georgetown University, just a few blocks away from the river. Girard named the shiner for Analostan Island, a 358,000 m² island in the middle of the Potomac almost directly across from Rock Creek. “Analostan” is derived from the indigenous Anacostan (or Nacotchtanck) people who once lived there.

During the American Civil War (during which Girard served as a surgeon for the Confederates), the island was used as a training camp for the United States Colored Troops, primarily comprised of African Americans. In addition, the island also served as a refugee camp for freed Black people who flocked to Washington, D.C., following emancipation. Despite the U.S. government’s presumably good intentions, the camp was poorly managed, becoming overcrowded with 1,200 starving, sick people who lived, per one report, in “disease-ridden squalor,” lacking the “bare necessities of life.”

 Today, the island is known as Theodore Roosevelt Island, maintained by the U.S. government as a natural park. No cars or bicycles are permitted on the island, which is reached by a footbridge from Arlington, Virginia, on the western bank of the Potomac. 

The Satinfin Shiner is well known to me, as it is a common inhabitant of the streams near where I live. I’ve spent many hours snorkeling with Satinfins. The key is to snorkel facing downstream and to let the Satinfins swim upstream towards your mask, where they feed on whatever food particles you dislodge from the substrate. The “Satinfin” monicker refers to the milky-white border surrounding all fins on nuptial males.

All Cyprinella shiners (30 described species) are noteworthy for their novel reproductive strategy. To borrow a phrase from the late Phil Cochran, they’re fishes that spawn in trees. Literally.

Cyprinella deposit their eggs in crevices in submerged logs, loose bark on fallen trees, tree roots, and other woody debris, or in the cracks between rocks and boulders. Crevice spawning protects the eggs from a number of hazards, including predation by other fishes, abrasion by drifting items, being swept away by strong currents, smothering in silty or muddy bottoms, and direct sunlight.

In addition to crevice spawning, Cyprinella exhibit another reproductive behavior that may be unique to the genus—mock solo spawning, or the solo run. In mock solo spawning, dominant nuptial male Cyprinella go through the motions of spawning—cruising over crevices, vibrating, undulating, holding their fins erect—before actual spawning occurs. Three possibilities may explain this behavior. Males could be testing the suitability of the crevice and/or checking for appropriate water velocity. They could be signaling to the female, “Yes, this is the place!” And they could be ejaculating sperm into the crevice before the female arrives.

When they’re not mock spawning, male Cyprinella are highly territorial. They chase, bite, ram, head-butt, and may even grab rival males by a fin and “escort” them away from the spawning site. Females, meanwhile, hang close by in a group and watch the goings on. Occasionally a male will swim up to a female and encourage her to follow him back to the nest. Once a female makes up her mind to spawn, courtship can last for seconds or even hours. When she’s finally ready, the female “sprays” her eggs into the crevice with great accuracy, sometimes from as far as 5 cm away. Should any eggs miss or fall out of the crevice, the male circles back and eats them.

For land-based fishwatchers, a shoal of 25 or so male Cyprinella in full breeding regalia is a glorious sight indeed. Look for flashes of white in areas where trees have fallen into the water. If you can snorkel towards a Cyprinella nest, even better. Keep still and they won’t notice you’re there.

Unlike most other minnows, in which the females deposit most or all of their eggs at once, Cyprinella are “fractional spawners,” so called because females deposit only a fraction of their eggs during each spawning act. As a result, the Cyprinella breeding season can last from the spring through summer, and even into autumn in some areas. Fractional spawning is said to increase reproductive potential by reducing the number of larvae that compete for food and space at any one time. It’s also a wise strategy for fishes that are choosy about where they spawn; since the number of appropriate crevices in any given stream may be limited, fractional spawning allows Cyprinella to reuse the same sites week after week after week.

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21 February
Fishes named after inventors

Electrophorus voltai de Santana, Wosiacki, Crampton, Sabaj, Dillman, Castro e Castro, Bastos & Vari 2019
This electric eel is named in honor of Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (1745­–1827), the inventor of the electric battery and for whom the “volt” is named. With a discharge of 860 V, this eel is the strongest living bioelectricity generator known.

Hyphessobrycon peugeoti Ingenito, Lima & Buckup 2013
This tetra is named in honor of the Peugeot family of France (better known for their cars), who invented the pepper grinder in 1842. Earlier versions of pepper mills were based on a mortar-and-pestle design. Peugeot’s grinder used case-hardened steel to crack the peppercorns before the actual grinding, a less labor-intensive process. In addition, the grooves on the Peugeot mechanism were individually cut into the metal, making them very durable. According to the ichthyologists who described and named this tetra, the Peugeot family’s contemporary manufacturing business led to the establishment of a carbon sink reforestation project in the fazenda São Nicolau, in central Brazil, which led to the discovery of this species. They still make pepper mills, very expensive ones at that.

Pandaka lidwilli (McCulloch 1917)
This dwarf (15.25 mm) goby occurs in brackish and salt water in the mouths of rivers and maritime zones in Japan, Australia, and Papua New Guinea. It’s named in honor of Mark C. Lidwill (1878-1969), an English-born Australian anesthesiologist and cardiologist. With physicist Edgar H. Booth, he invented the pacemaker in 1926. When not saving lives, Lidwill was also an avid rod-and-reel saltwater angler. He observed this minute goby “while in the quest of somewhat larger game” and brought it to McCulloch’s attention.

Grammonus claudei (Torre y Huerta 1930)
As its common name indicates, the Reef-cave Brotula lives in reefs and caves along the shorelines of Cuba, Bermuda and the Bahamas. It’s named in honor of French engineer Georges Claude (1870–1960), who inadvertently discovered it in Matanzas Bay, Cuba, when pumping cool seawater up from the depths to convert into electricity via a process called “ocean thermal energy conversion.” Georges Claude — at one time called the “Edison of France” — was also the inventor of neon lighting. In 1945, he was imprisoned for five years for collaborating with Germany during World War II.

Gramma linki Starck & Colin 1978
Edwin Link (1904–1981) was an American entrepreneur and pioneer in aviation, underwater archaeology, and submersibles. One of his submersibles, Deep Diver, was the first small submersible designed for “lockout diving,” allowing divers to leave and enter the craft while underwater. Deep Diver was used to collect the holotype of the Yellowcheek Basslet off Cozumel Island, Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea. The authors said Link’s “imaginative developments in undersea technology and generous support of marine science have made untouched realms of the sea accessible.” Among Link’s 27 patents is one for the invention of the flight simulator in the 1920s.

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14 February
Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today is Valentine’s Day. Here is a quartet of love- and heart-themed names from the realm of fishes.

Pseudoscopelus cordilluminatus Melo 2010 Pseudoscopelus (Chiasmodontidae) is a genus of meso- and bathypelagic fishes with a worldwide distribution. Like many deep-sea fishes, they possess luminous glandular organs called photophores. Ichthyologists often use the shapes and patterns of these photophores to distinguish between otherwise similar-looking species. This species, from the Indian Ocean and eastern South Atlantic, is distinguished in part by the patch of photophores on its body just above the anal fin. The author, Marcelo R. S. Melo, described this patch as heart-shaped and named it accordingly: a combination of the Latin cordis, of the heart, and illuminatus, full of light.

Atherina boyeri Risso 1810 France has a long history of art, literature and culture that celebrates love and romance. Even a baitfish, the Big-scale Sand Smelt, has a love-themed scientific name. French naturalist Antoine Risso (1777–1845) described the species from his hometown of Nice, France, and wanted to honor a fellow Niçard with its epithet. He chose Guillaume Boyer, a Medieval poet, naturalist and mathematician. According to Risso, Boyer’s “love poems were sung by all the troubadours of the 13th century” (translation). La musique c’est l’amour!

Many ichthyologists have demonstrated how much they love their spouses by naming fishes after them. If the next two epithets are any indication, being the wife of an ichthyologist requires a certain amount of patience.

Bryconamericus yokiae Román-Valencia 2003 Colombian ichthyologist César Román-Valencia named this characin from the Salado River of Venezuela in honor of his wife Yoki. He described as “La bruja de mis suenõs” (“the witch of my dreams”) and thanked her “for her sleepless nights and patience with a husband in love with little fishes.” A Spanish speaker informed me that “La bruja de mis suenõs” is a term of endearment, akin to a “bewitching woman.”

Nothobranchius ditte Nagy 2018 Some ichthyologists are also aquarium hobbyists. Killifish taxonomist Béla Nagy apparently has lots of tanks at home. In 2018, Nagy named this annual killifish from ephemeral swamps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for his “beloved” wife Edit Csikós, nicknamed “Ditte.” He thanked her for her “patience during all the time I am away for collecting fishes and also for the care of keeping all the fish alive during my absences.”

A wife who takes care of your aquariums — now that’s love!

For more love-inspired fish names, see the “Name of the Week” for Valentine’s Day, 14 February 2018.

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7 February
Shakespearean fishes

Some taxonomists like to show off their learning by naming taxa after characters from the plays of William Shakespeare. Ichthyologists are no exception. Here are fish names inspired by the Bard of Avon.

Iago Compagno & Springer 1971 This small genus (three species) of houndsharks (Triakidae: Galeorhininae) occurs in deeper waters in the Indian and Western Pacific oceans. The genus was named for Iago, a villain in Shakespeare’s Othello, referring to how the classification of the type species, I. omanensis, had been a “troublemaker for systematists and hence a kind of villain.”

Malvoliophis Whitley 1934 This monotypic genus of snake eel (Ophichthidae: Ophichthinae) occurs in the Western Pacific. Gilbert Whitley (1903­–1975) did not explain the meaning of the name (he often did not). In 1977, eel expert John E. McCosker, citing a personal communication with Whitley, reported that the genus is named for Malvolio, Lady Olivia’s steward in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, alluding to the banded coloration of M. pinguis, suggestive of the cross-gartered legs and yellow socks worn by that character. (The second part of the name, ophis, Greek for serpent, is a conventional termination for the generic names of snake eels, referring to their snake-like shape.)

Sundadanio atomus Conway, Kottelat & Tan 2011 Although not directly inspired by Shakespeare, the authors of this danionid from peat-swamp forests of Indonesia mention the Bard in their etymology. Atomus is Latin for an indivisible particle, referring to the fish’s small size (up to 15.7 mm SL). The authors say the name also alludes to the Middle English atomy, a diminutive fairy creature or sprite, a team of which drew Queen Mab’s carriage in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Priocharax ariel Weitzman & Vari 1987 This name of this diminutive characin (up to 15.1 mm SL) is derived from the Greek aeriios, meaning aerial (existing, happening or operating in the air), which Shakespeare applied to the name of a spirit in The Tempest. This fish’s small size and translucent coloration in life reminded Weitzman and Vari of Shakespeare’s airy spirit.

Ophidion antipholus, O. dromio and O. puck Lea & Robins 2003 Lea and Robins named two of these cusk-eels (Ophidiidae) after the brothers Antipholus and Dromio from Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. The brothers’ identities are confused throughout the play. Likewise, these two species had been widely and incorrectly reported as O. beani (a junior synonym of O. holbrooki). The third species, O. puck, is named for Puck, a “tricky fairy” in the service of King Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The authors say the choice of three Shakespearean names indicates that these species are “part of a larger story,” but they do not explain what this story might be.

Haplochromis cassius Greenwood & Barel 1978 This African cichlid from Lake Victoria has, in my opinion, the coolest Shakespearean name among fishes. It’s from Julius Caesar (Act I, Scene II), “Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.” The authors did not explain their selection of the name, but they mention that the fish has a “predatory” appearance. Their illustration (shown here) shows a “lean and hungry”-looking fish indeed.

 

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31 January
In honor of Professor Súper O

Sturisoma defranciscoi Londoño-Burbano & Britto 2023 is a recently described species of loricariid catfish known from the upper Amazon River basin of Colombia and the upper Solimões River drainage of Brazil. Its name, an eponym, honors someone you wouldn’t normally associate with fishes: Martín Guillermo de Francisco (b. 1966), a Colombian television announcer, actor, sports journalist, and creator (and I assume voice) of Professor Súper O, an animated Columbian television series first broadcast in 2006.

Professor Súper O is a superhero who corrects people who make grammatical and linguistic mistakes.

The authors of the new species honored de Francisco for his contributions to the “grammar and correct speaking and writing of the Spanish language through the teaching of rules of the language, mainly through the creation, in 2006 (Colombia), of the educational character Professor Súper O.”

I emailed the first author asking if Professor Super O played an important part in the authors’ younger, formative years, but I have not received a reply.

Other TV personalities honored in the names of fishes include naturalist David F. Attenborough, Nothobranchius attenboroughi Nagy, Watters & Bellstedt 2020, a seasonal killifish from Tanzania; writer and explorer Anthony Smith Eidinemacheilus smithi (Greenwood 1976), a blind cave loach (see NOTW, 4 Jan. 2023); and TV math teacher William Smith, Coryogalops william (Smith 1948), a goby from the Western Indian Ocean, described by his father, South African ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith (see NOTW, 22 May 2019).

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24 January
Pez grasso, the Greasefish: Rhizosomichthys totae (Miles 1942)

Rhizosomichthys totae (Trichomycteridae) is one of the most unusual catfishes in the world. Its distinctive feature is the presence of six or seven rings of adipose tissue that encircle its trunk, plus two large pads of adipose tissue on top of its head. Known only from Lake Tota, a high-altitude lake situated in the mountains outside Bogota, Colombia’s capital city, only 10 specimens are known. Last seen in 1957, the Greasefish is thought to be extinct.

Interestingly, for such a distinctively fatty fish, its generic name, Rhizosomichthys, is something of a riddle. But I believe I figured it out.

English naturalist Cecil Miles, who introduced rainbow trout to Colombia, initially described the catfish as Pygidium totae in 1942. (Pygidium, diminutive of the Latin pyga, rump, from the Greek pygḗ [πυγή], was then a catch-all name for many trichomycterid catfishes; it is now considered a name of doubtful identity and no longer used.) The specific name, “of Tota,” clearly refers to the lake where it occurred.

Miles suggested that the species deserved its own genus, and even proposed a provisional name “Bathophilus” — bathýs (Gr. βαθύς), deep + phílos (Gr. φίλος), fond of — referring to the deep water (up to 300 m, according to Miles, but other accounts say 65–80m) of the lake where the catfish lived. But Miles hesitated for two reasons: (1) He was not sure whether the name “Bathophilus” had already been proposed for another animal genus. And (2), to quote his words: “although the fatty folds were always present in regular series …  there was still a remote possibility that the origin of the folds was pathological.”

Over the next several months, Miles corresponded with other ichthyologists and learned that “Bathophilus” was in fact twice preoccupied, including Bathophilus Giglioli 1882, a genus of barbled dragonfishes (Stomiidae), and was therefore not available. He also learned, through a fish parasitologist — amusingly named Dr. Frederic F. Fish — that there was no histological evidence that the fatty folds were due to tumor or disease. In other words, the adipose tissue was indeed a natural and therefore diagnostic character.

One would think that Miles would propose a generic name that unambiguously referred to the fish’s fatty tissue. After all, Miles mentioned that the locals called the catfish “pez grasso,” or greasefish. He said the rings of fat resembled automobile tires. He reported that the fat was easily combustible, burning like a candle and smelling like butter when lit. In fact, a few years prior, an earthquake had apparently killed large numbers of this catfish, which residents burned to light their homes. And Miles said that the catfish possessed an internal layer of body fat similar to the blubber of whales.

Instead, Miles seemingly ignored all of these fascinating facts about the catfish and named the genus, without any explanation, Rhizosomichthys.

The last part of the name, ichthýs (Gr. ἰχθύς), clearly means fish. The first part of the name can be explained two ways: (1) rhizo-, from rhíza (Gr. ῥίζα), root + sṓma (Gr. σῶμα), body, i.e., “root body fish.” (2) rhízōma (ῥίζωμα), a “mass of roots” or rhizome, a botanical term for a subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes, i.e., “rhizome fish.”

Other than a general reference to deep water, Miles did not mention habitat in his two papers about the fish. He did not mention whether it occurred in root wads at the bottom of the lake. But when I googled “rhizome” I came across a number of photos, including turmeric and ginger (shown here) rhizomes. Compare it to a photograph of the holotype shown above.

See a resemblance?

Miles likely played a role in the catfish’s extinction. He determined that the cold waters of Lake Tota was perfect for the introduction of rainbow trout. In 1936, 100,000 rainbow trout eggs, imported from North America, were released into the lake. When Miles described the catfish, he wrote (translated from the Spanish): “Of the few specimens obtained, the majority were found in a mutilated state, which is attributed to the activities of rainbow trout planted in the lake by the Ministry of the Economy. It’s possible, therefore, this species, without economic importance, is condemned to extinction.”

Recent efforts to locate Rhizosomichthys totae via environmental DNA (eDNA) have not been successful.

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17 January
Dysomma intermedium Vo & Ho 2024

Every year around this time we highlight the first-described new fish species of the New Year. For 2024 it is Dysomma intermedium.

Dysomma intermedium is an arrowtooth eel (Synaphobranchidae, subfamily Ilyophinae) described from off the southeast coast of Vietnam, collected via bottom trawl at 50–80 m. Its specific epithet is Latin for intermediate, referring to the “intermediate status of [its] trunk length and many characters that are shared with other congeners.”

The generic name Dysomma, proposed by British physician-naturalist Alfred William Alcock (1859–1933) in 1889, refers to their eyes, small and covered by thick, semi-transparent membrane. The Greek prefix dys– (δυς-) indicates something negative or unfavorable. The Greek noun ómma (ὄμμα) means eye.

According to Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes, 347 new fish species (241 freshwater, 106 marine/brackish) were described in 2023, well under the average of 406 new species described annually since 2004.

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10 January
Hypsolebias lulai Ramos, Nielsen, Abrantes, Lira & Lustosa-Costa 2023

In the 15 years that I’ve been studying fish names, I have not seen this happen: Someone has publicly criticized the name of a new species of fish, calling it “One of the Greatest Naming Errors in Taxonomic History.”

The fish in question is Hypsolebias lulai, an annual rivulid cloudfish known only from a temporary pool in the rio Trairi basin, Rio Grande do Norte State, Brazil. Like other annual killifishes, species of Hypsolebias are alive only during the rainy season. When their pools dry up, the adults die but their eggs persist in the substrate. The eggs hatch and the species repeat their life cycles when the rains return. Also, as with many other Hypsolebias species, H. lulai is at risk of extinction, in this case specifically due to the small size of its habitat, nearby agriculture, invasive Nile Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus, and hydroelectric dams.

The authors named the new species in honor of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (b. 1946), the current (2023) president of Brazil, “responsible for restoring conservation actions and socio-environmental enhancement and resuming incentives for Brazilian science.”

Any taxon named after a political figure is bound to draw both praise and criticism depending on one’s political preference. Since I do not live in Brazil, nor follow Brazilian politics, I cannot comment on Lula’s presidency. But I do understand that there are deep divisions in Brazilian society, akin to the political polarization in America. And herein lies the source of a pointed criticism of the Hypsolebias lulai name, posted on ResearchGate by one Fabiano Leal, who describes himself as “professional historian and independent researcher, which focuses on the approach of complex adaptive systems as a tool for analyzing historical phenomena.”

Leal argues that naming this fish after Lula plays into the stark political divisions in Brazil, wherein both sides vehemently hate and fear each other. This may be detrimental to the species’ survival in the wild. Leal says that the authors of H. lulai have “simply involved the new taxon in the whirlwind of the polarizing context. In fact, there is a real risk that this particular species will now be associated with a political identity, and an equally extensive risk that this identity will be extended to all rivulids. The problem here is that everything associated with one of the parties involved in this conflict is viewed and considered negatively by the other, becoming an object to be fiercely opposed.”

The name of this species made headlines in Brazil. Leal tracked the online comments. “Most of the negative comments contained derogatory elements towards the species,” he says. None of them mentioned any aspect of the importance of the discovery of a new species, its annual life history, nor its imperiled status. Instead, some comments “attributed to the species those negative attributes they saw in the Brazilian president, resulting in a clear process of personalizing the species, which occurs when a taxon starts to carry the attributes of a personality.”

Leal also worries that “conservation projects relying on government funds may be linked to political, ideological, and partisan actions that imply some degree of threat, whether real or imagined, to the interests of opposition groups. This could lead to a reduction in investments or even the discontinuation of projects.”

Leal goes on to argue that the naming of the cloudfish reflects how universities (including taxonomists who work for these universities) have become a “captive organ of the political-ideological interests of the Brazilian left.” In other words, scientists and academics tend to lean left, so they will see nothing controversial in naming a species after a leftist politician (such as Lula).

I saw something similar with the naming of four American darter species (Percidae) after Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Barack Obama in 2012. Some were okay with the names. Others thought they were a travesty.

Leal concludes by saying that species should not be named after politicians “involved in processes of polarization and social division,” as this can “drag a species into a scenario of ideological dispute that is not in the interest of a field of study like systematic[s], and with the serious potential to reflect on other segments, such as projects seeking to safeguard species from extinction.”

While I fervently support the right of taxonomists to name species any way they wish, I do wince when they honor political figures. I prefer names that bring people together to celebrate the taxon being described. Political epithets tend to pull people apart.

One 20th-century American ichthyologist is reputed to have said this about honoring politicians:

“Give them the streets, but keep them out of our [taxonomic] papers.”

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3 January
Abudefduf Forsskål 1775

Fish ecologist Jan Jeffrey Hoover (see 1 July 2015 NOTW) sent me an amusing name-related passage from the 1920 book In Lower Florida Wilds: A Naturalist’s Observations on the Life, Physical Geography, and Geology of the More Tropical Part of the State by Charles Torrey Simpson (1846–1932), an American botanist, malacologist, and conservationist. The passage concerns the genus name of the Sergeant Major Abudefduf saxatilis (Linnaeus 1758), a common inhabitant of the Western Atlantic from North Caroline to the Caribbean Sea.

Abudefduf is one of the oddest “Latin” names of fishes, probably because it’s not Latin. It’s Arabic. It is named for Abu-defduf, the Arabic name for A. sordidus from the Red Sea and Indo-West Pacific. The name is a combination of three elements:

Abu, father (i.e., possessor, or one with), or abū, a prefix particle denoting “an animal having or being like”

def, meaning side

–duf, an intensive plural ending

Roughly translated, Abudefduf means “the one with prominent sides,” presumably referring to the dark crossbands on A. sordidus and related species.

While Abu-defduf no doubt sounded like a normal word throughout the Arab world of the late 18th century, its combination of phonemes likely sounded strange to Charles Torrey Simpson, whose western ears were attuned to Latin and other Romance languages. Here is what he wrote in 1920:

“This little living jewel bears the atrocious scientific name of Abudefduf saxatilis. Anyone who would blight the life and reputation of such a wonderful creature by calling it ‘Abudefduf’ ought to be barred from naming any more of nature’s creations. And its common names of ‘cow pilot’ and ‘sergeant major’ are not much better. We ought to have a society for the prevention of nomenclatural cruelty to animals.”

“Society for the Prevention of Nomenclatural Cruelty to Animals” — I know some biologists who believe such a society should be formed.

Footnote: The common name “cow pilot” refers to its alleged habit of being always found near cowfishes of the genus Ostracion. The common name “sergeant major” refers to its stripes, said to resemble the traditional insignia of the military rank.