Tetraodon peronii Bibron

Kottelat, Maurice, 2001, Nomenclatural status of names of tetraodontiform fishes based on Bibron’s unpublished work, Zoosystema 23 (3), pp. 605-618 : 615-617

Tetraodon peronii Bibron in Duméril, 1855: 282

Available by indication to “De Verkenstop” of Valentyn (1724: pl. 498). Probably no type specimens.

APPENDIX: THE TYPE SPECIES

OF LAGOCEPHALUS SWAINSON, 1839

The identity of the type species of Lagocephalus had to be investigated when writing this paper. It is no longer immediately relevant to the main discussion and is therefore given as an appendix.

Lagocephalus is available from Swainson (1839: 194, 328). On p. 194, he gave a very brief diagnosis of Lagocephalus : “Body above smooth; belly armed with spines”. On p. 328, he gave a slightly expanded diagnosis: “Head short; the upper parts of the body smooth; the belly armed with angulated spines, as in Diodon ” and he listed two nominal species: “ L. stellatus . Bl. pl. 143 [L.] Pennantii . Yarrell, ii. 347”. Swain (1883) published a list of all Swainson’s genera, including comments on the identity of some and a list of the included species, exactly in Swainson’s format, merely adding an asterisk under each genus to designate a type species. This is how “ L. stellatus . Bl. pl. 143” is type species of Lagocephalus .

Tyler (1966) considered that Bonaparte (1841) had earlier designated L. pennantii as type species, in designating T. lagocephalus Linnaeus, 1758 as type and at the same time synonymizing T. lagocephalus and L. pennantii . This would be a valid designation under art. 69.2.2 of the Code. This was not accepted by Eschmeyer (1998: 1987) and I partly agree. Bonaparte’s work is not commonly available and is difficult to quote as the pages are not numbered. The relevant passages are quoted and translated by Tyler (I have checked them in the original). Eschmeyer commented that Bonaparte has not synonymized the two species; I considered that the sentence: “We adopt […] the name Tetraodon pennanti given to it by Yarrell […] inasmuch as the Linnean specific name lagocephalus has become generic” clearly is a synonymization. But I agree with Eschmeyer that nowhere did Bonaparte designate a type species for Lagocephalus . “ Lagocephalus Swainson […] is the T. lagocephalus of Linnaeus” cannot be regarded as a type species designation.

Eschmeyer (1998: 1987) concluded that the type species is Swainson’s “ Tetraodon stellatus Bl. pl. 143” ( Bloch, 1785: pl. 143) by subsequent designation by Swain (1883: 283). As Bloch’s pl. 143 in fact shows T. honckenii Bloch, 1795 (which is the type species of Amblyrhynchote ), Eschmeyer commented that the name Lagocephalus could only be retained as currently used if the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature is petitioned. This is only partly correct.

Swainson (1839) makes available a large number of species group names by indication to published plates. Is this the case of Lagocephalus stellatus? It is possible. But it is also possible that he referred to Tetraodon lagocephalus var. stellatus Bloch in Schneider, 1801: 503 (a valid species of Arothron ; Dor 1984: 285; Matsuura 1994: 29), T. stellatus Donovan, 1804 (a synonym of L. lagocephalus ; Shipp 1974: 24) or T. stellatus Shaw, 1804 (a synonym of T. l. stellatus Bloch in Schneider, 1801). Bloch and Shaw’s names are based on “ Tetrodon étoilé” of La Cepède (1798). A large number of nomenclatural problems are associated with Swainson’s book, suggesting a lack of familiarity with nomenclature and ichthyology. These include, among others, inconsistencies in spelling and placement of genera, use of different names for the same taxa in different parts of the book, and erroneous references.

My hypothesis is that there is a lapsus in Swainson (1839: 328) and that in fact he wanted to refer to plate 140 and not 143 of Bloch (1785). Plate 143 shows a fish ( T. honckenii ) with simple, pointed spines extending high laterally towards the dorsum – but not on middle of dorsum). Plate 140 shows a fish ( T. lagocephalus ) with rows of spines on the belly and no spines on the dorsal half of the body. The spines are stellate and on Bloch’s plate appear somehow similar, although smaller, than those of Diodon species (plates 125-127, especially 127). Plate 140 is labelled with the Latin name Tetrodon lagocephalus , the German “Sternbauch” (stellate belly), the French “Orbe étoilé” (stellate globe) and the English “The Stary Globe-Fish”. The generic name used by Swainson ( Lagocephalus ), the specific name ( stellatus ) and the listed diagnostic characters (see above) all support the hypothesis that Swainson was in fact referring to plate 140 and not 143. Swainson named many new genera by using the specific name of one of the included species. If L. stellatus is linked with plate 143, neither the generic nor the specific names make sense and there is no agreement with the description.

Common sense suggests to consider the reference to plate 143 as a lapsus for plate 140 and to correct this error; this is what I do, even if the Code is silent on such cases (it neither allows nor forbids doing so; I consider that what is not explicitly forbidden is permitted. Others may consider that what is not explicitly permitted is not allowed, but it can easily be demonstrated ad absurdum that this approach cannot apply to the Code: the Code nowhere states who has the right to publish nomenclatural acts, so under this logic nobody has the right to publish nomenclatural acts; as a result there would be no nomenclatural problems and a Code is not needed).

If one does not accept such a correction of lapsus or errors, I see only three ways of handling the case. The first two preserve the usage of Lagocephalus for the species currently called L. lagocephalus :

1) the first one is to petition the Commission to either designate an other type species for Lagocephalus or to set aside the holotype of the type species and designate a specimen of L. lagocephalus as neotype (this also implies that a lectotype be designated for L. lagocephalus ; see below); 2) the second way is to treat L. stellatus of Swainson as a new combination of T. stellatus Donovan, 1804 (and to treat the reference to “Bl. pl. 143” as a misidentification of Bloch’s [1785] plate 143). By virtue of art. 67.7 of the Code, Swain (1883) designated T. stellatus Donovan as type species of Lagocephalus . As the type species designated by Swain was misidentified by Swainson (evidenced by his erroneous reference to Bloch’s plate 143), we have here the case of a misidentified type species and, under art. 70.3 of the Code I fix here T. stellatus Donovan, 1804 as the type species of Lagocephalus Swainson, 1839 . Tetraodon stellatus Donovan, 1804 is a junior homonym of T. l. stellatus Bloch in Schneider, 1801 and is invalid, but this does not affect its availability as type species of Lagocephalus . Tetraodon stellatus Donovan, 1804 is treated as a junior synonym of L. lagocephalus by Shipp (1974: 24), but formally, this should first be established by a designation of a lectotype as, as demonstrated by Shipp (1974: 25-27), Linnaeus’s (1758: 332) account is based on several sources involving species of Lagocephalus and Canthigaster . One of the syntypes is possibly still extant ( Fernholm & Wheeler 1983: 278);

3) the third way does not preserve the present usage of Lagocephalus . Swainson’s L. stellatus is treated as a new name available by indication (Code: art. 12.2.7). As there is no reference to Bloch’s text, the name is based only on the plate of T. honckenii , and the specimen used as model for the plate should be treated as the holotype. As Tetraodon stellatus Donovan, 1804 is a synonym of L. lagocephalus ( Linnaeus, 1758) , L. stellatus Swainson, 1839 would be a junior secondary homonym of T. stellatus and invalid (Code, art. 57.3.1). This would not affect its availability as type species of Lagocephalus . As T. honckenii is the type species of Amblyrhynchote , Amblyrhynchote would become a junior synonym of Lagocephalus and the species presently placed in Lagocephalus would have to be called Promecocephale Bibron in Duméril, 1855. There are two syntypes of T. honckenii ( Paepke, 1999: 148) ; the figured one would be the holotype of T. stellatus ; the synonymy would become subjective or objective depending of which specimen would be designated as lectotype of T. honckenii .

CONCLUSION

Accepting Swainson’s reference to Bloch’s plate “143” as a lapsus for plate “140” is the alternative which is most logical, most parsimonious and preserves best nomenclatural stability. This means that Lagocephalus stellatus Swainson, 1839 is a junior subjective synonym of T. lagocephalus Linnaeus, 1758 .