COMMENTS
v. 6.0 – 21 Aug. 2019 view/download PDF
Family POLYPTERIDAE Bichirs
2 genera • 14 species
Erpetoichthys Smith 1865 presumably a misspelling or variant spelling of herpetos, snake, referring to “serpent-like aspect”; ichthys, fish [mistakenly believing “Erpetoichthys” was preoccupied, Smith proposed an unnecessary replacement name in 1866: Calamoichthys (calamus, reed; ichthys, fish, referring to its “cylindrical character”); some scholars believe that due to the vagaries of journal publishing in the 1800s, Calamoichthys inadvertently predates Erpetoichthys (with date changed to 1868) and should be the valid name of the genus]
Erpetoichthys calabaricus Smith 1865 –icus, belonging to: Old Calabar River, West Africa, type locality
Polypterus Lacepède 1803 poly, many; pteron, fin, referring to multiple dorsal finlets instead of single dorsal fin
Polypterus ansorgii Boulenger 1910 in honor of explorer William John Ansorge (1850-1913), who collected type
Polypterus bichir Lacepède 1803 local Arabic name for this fish along the Nile River in Egypt
Polypterus congicus Boulenger 1898 –icus, belonging to: the Congo Basin (Stanley Falls), type locality
Polypterus delhezi Boulenger 1899 in honor of Belgian artist and naturalist Henri Paul Delhez (1870-1900), who collected type and provided life-history notes on bichirs based on interviews with locals; his collections and field observations were useful in the preparation of Boulenger’s book on Congo fishes
Polypterus endlicherii Heckel 1847 in honor of botanist Stephan Endlicher (1804-1849), who apparently discovered the species in the fish collection at the Naturhistorisches Museum (Vienna)
Polypterus mokelembembe Schliewen & Schäfer 2006 Mokele-mbembe, a mythological creature believed by some to be a sauropod dinosaur that survived the extinction of dinosaurs in the central Congo basin, alluding to the archaic nature of polypteriforms, which most likely are the sister group to the remaining Actinopterygii, and which probably existed at the same time as sauropods
Polypterus ornatipinnis Boulenger 1902 ornatus, decorated; pinnis, fin, referring to black spots on dorsal fin and black bars on pectoral, ventral, anal and caudal fins
Polypterus palmas Ayres 1850 referring to Cape Palmas, Liberia, type locality
Polypterus polli Gosse 1988 in honor of Belgian ichthyologist Max Poll (1908-1991), who proposed a name for this bichir in 1954 (P. palmas congicus, preoccupied by P. congicus Boulenger 1898) but did not describe it
Polypterus retropinnis Vaillant 1899 retro, back; pinnis, fin, referring to origin of dorsal fin behind the middle of the body
Polypterus senegalus Cuvier 1829 Senegalese (described from Senegal)
Polypterus teugelsi Britz 2004 in honor of the late Guy Teugels (1954-2003), curator of fishes at the Musée Royale de l’Afrique Centrale, for his “myriad influential contributions to the systematics of African freshwater fishes”
Polypterus weeksii Boulenger 1898 in honor of John Henry Weeks (1861-1924), Baptist missionary, ethnographer, explorer and diarist, who collected type at his mission station in Monsembe, upper Congo River, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo)
