Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 55(3) September 1998 155 Case 3071 Osphronemus deissneri Bleeker, 1859 (currently Parosphromenus deissneri; Osteichthyes, Perciformes): proposed replacement of holotype by a neotype P.K.L. Ng School of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260, Republic of Singapore (e-mail:
[email protected]) Maurice Kottelat Case postale 57. 2952 Cornol, Switzerland (e-mail:
[email protected]) Abstract. The purpose of this application is to clarify the identity of Osphronemus deissneri Bleeker, 1859. the type species of Parosphromenus Bleeker, 1877, a genus of licorice gouramies from the freshwater and peat swamps of Southeast Asia important both in the aquarium trade and as environmental bioindicators. The holotype of O. deissneri is badly damaged and lacks the characters necessary for identification. It is proposed that it be replaced with a neotype in order to stabilise the taxonomy of Parosphromenus. Keywords. Nomenclature; taxonomy; Osteichthyes; Perciformes; licorice gouramies; belontiidae; Parospliromenus; Parosphromenus deissneri. 1. In 1801 (p. 1 16), the nominal genus Osphronemus was estaWished by Lacepede (spelt La Cepede in the publication) with two species. O. goramy (p. 1 16. pi. 8, fig. 2) and O. galtus (p. 116). O. goramy was subsequently designated as the type species by Bleeker (1879, pp. 16-17 — for date of publication see Lamme, 1975). Cuvier (1829, p. 228) referred to 'Ospliromenus gourami [sic]' Lacepede but he did not mention the original spelling Osphronemus, although two years later (Cuvier in Cuvier & Valenciennes, 1831, p. 377) he explained that the name 'osphromene' had been used by Commerson in an unpublished manuscript, and that Lacepede had published this name as 'osphroneme". 2. Bleeker (1859, p. 376) established the species Osphromemis [sic] deissneri, and in 1877 (pi. 395, caption of fig. 1) established the nominal genus Parosphromenus, with Ospliromenus deissneri as type species by monotypy. This plate appeared in 1877 and predates the earliest description of Paro.sphromenus generally quoted in the literature, i.e. Bleeker, 1879, p. 19 (see Boeseman, 1983, p. 4). 3. The licorice gouramies of Parosphromenus are widely distributed in the freshwater and peat swamps of Southeast Asia, and 1 1 nominal species are now recognised (Kottelat, 1991; Kottelat et al., 1993). These fishes are important not only in the aquarium trade but also as environmental bioindicators (Ng, Tay & Lim, 1994). The taxonomy of species of Parosphromenus is difficult as there are very few
Specimen codes extracted from OCR text.
BioStor
