History of the Sternoptixinae, a family of the osseous fishes, and their anatomical peculiarities : with a description of the Sternoptix celebes, a species not hitherto noticed / by P.D. Handyside.

Date:
[1839?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the Sternoptixinae, a family of the osseous fishes, and their anatomical peculiarities : with a description of the Sternoptix celebes, a species not hitherto noticed / by P.D. Handyside. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    in which that character is wanting, the former is known to na- turalists as the Sternoptix diaiihana. Owing to the great rarity of this fish, it being hitherto known to no author ex- cepting through the means of the very incorrect representa- tion of it afforded by Hermann, and the specimen which that naturalist has left in the museum at Strasburg, no opportu- nity has yet offered for rectifying the mistakes into which Hermann fell, who described this fish as devoid of gill-mem- brane and of a lateral line, and who placed it among the Apodes of Linnaeus, thus concluding it to be destitute of ven- tral fins. Linnceus* indeed, at the conclusion of the descrip- tion of his 1st class of fishes,—the pisces apodes—has, like Hermann, given very erroneously the characters of the Ster- noptix diaphana, and it remained for Cuvier,\ while noticing very shortly both species, to take occasion to correct some of the inaccuracies of Hermann, and from examination of the specimen which Hermann himself described, and which he saw at Strasburg, to introduce it at the end of the Salmonidw, the fourth family of his order Malacopterygii abdominales. While the two species adverted to, offer, in respect to their general form, translucency in the caudal region, number of branchial rays, character of the teeth, &c., points of diffe- rence such as to have induced Cuvier to remark, ces deux especes poiirront former un jour les types de deux genres, they yet agree in the situation of the teeth, and in some strik- ing peculiarities of general structure and form. But the species of Sternoptix which I proceed to describe differs from both of the preceding in many, even generic cha- racters, such as the situation, character, and nixmber of the teeth, the number of the branchial rays, and the components of the different fins, and it differs also in respect to the loca- lity in which it occurs ; for, while the two former seem to be confined to the West India Islands, and the warmer parts of the Atlantic, the latter has been hitherto observed only in the Eastern Archipelago. I am umvilling, however, in the pre- sent imperfect state of our knowledge respecting this family • Systema Naturae Gmel. p. 1150.