7^/,0&73 Vol. 54, pp. 15-16 February 26, 1941 PROCEEDINGS or THB BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON THE PROPER SPECIFIC NAME FOR THE ORIENTAL CATFISH USUALLY CALLED PLOTOSUS . , ANGUILLARIS (BLOCH). BY HUGH M. SMITH. In 1794 Bloch (Naturgeschichte der Auslandischen Fische, VIII) established the genus Platystacus and included therein two new species, cotylephorus and anguillaris. These fishes are not congeneric, and when, in 1863, Bleeker made cotylephorus the genotype the species anguillaris was left without an available generic name. Incidently, cotylephorus belongs in the genus Aspredo (ScopoH, 1777), and Platystacus became a synonym. In the meantime Lacepede (Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, IV, 1803) had set up the genus Plotosus, with Platystacus anguil-laris as the haplotype, and the fish has generally been known as Plotosus anguillaris since that time. There was, however, an earlier available name which had been given to the fish by Carl Peter Thunberg in a paper entitled Tvanne Utlandska Fiskar (Kongliga Vetenskaps Academiens Nya Handlingar, XII, 1791, p. 190). The fish, called Silurus lineatus, was described in considerable detail and was unmistakably represented on a plate shared with a new goby (Gobius patella), both species being ascribed to the Indian Ocean. It would therefore appear that the proper name for this fish is Plotosus lineatus (Thunberg). Cuvier and Valenciennes (Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, XV, 1840) revived the name lineatus for the fish but made no reference to its previous employment and wrote Plotosus lineatus, nob. They pointed out assumed differences between their fish and P. anguillaris, but Bleeker, Gunther, Weber and de Beaufort, and other authorities have had no hesitancy in regarding lineatus of Cuvier and Valenciennes as a 85Tionym of anguillaris of Bloch. The availability of the name arab for this species naturally comes up for consideration. This designation seems to have originated with Bleeker, who at first credited the name Silurus arab to Forsk&l (Descriptionea 2— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 64, 1941. (16) MAR s 1941
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