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XXXI.—Description of Calamoichthys, a new Genus of Ganoid Fish from Old Calabar, Western Africa; forming an addition to the Family Polypterini

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

John Alexander Smith
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Extract

In the beginning of the year 1865, I received from the Rev. Alexander Robb, one of the missionaries of the United Presbyterian Church, residing at Creek Town, Old Calabar, Western Africa, a package containing some zoological specimens, preserved in spirits; and in a letter dated 28th October 1864, referring to its contents, he states, there “are also two or three small eel-like fishes.” Some time passed before I was able carefully to examine the package, and I was then at once attracted by these small fish, which I saw belonged to the very distinct and interesting Order of the Ganoid fishes, so abundant in a fossil state in the rocks of our earlier geological epochs, but of which so few representatives are now to be found as living inhabitants of the present waters of our globe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , 1866 , pp. 457 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1866

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References

page 458 note * I have since learned that this designation, or a closely allied one, has been already used in Ichthyology, and accordingly, on the recommendation of Dr Grunther, of the British Museum, I have changed the name of the genus to Calamoichthys (Καλαμος a reed, and ΙΧθύς a fish), which will still bear a relation to the cylindrical character of the fish.—J. A. S.

page 460 note * Mr Robb has recently sent me the following additional remarks on the native name of this fish:—“Many of the natives call this fish Nyang; and this suggests another possible etymology. Nyang is the stipule of the leaf of the mimbo palm, which, being of a narrow ribbon shape, dries up and remains twisted round the tree, from year to year, as long as the tree exists. The colour of the dried stipule is like that of the fish; and very possibly either the fish was named from Nyang of the mimbo palm, or Nyang was named from the fish. In this latter case, which is not at all improbable, the etymology is left undecided, and remains a matter of conjecture.”

page 478 note * An abstract of Dr Traquair's paper is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. v. p. 657.