Thrissina baelama ( Fabricius, 1775 )

Hata, Harutaka, Mandagi, Ixchel F. & Masengi, Kawilarang W. A., 2023, Resurrection of nominal species previously regarded as junior synonyms of Thrissina baelama (Fabricius, 1775) and their re-descriptions (Teleostei: Clupeiformes: Engraulidae), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 71, pp. 279-302 : 282-285

Thrissina baelama ( Fabricius, 1775)

[English name: Baelama Anchovy ] ( Fig. 3 ; Tables 2, 3)

Clupea baelama , encrasicholus ? (see Remarks): Fabricius, 1775: 72 [original locality: Djiddae (currently Jeddah), Saudi Arabia; type locality, Port Sudan, Sudan, based on newly designated neotype] .

Clupea encrasicholus (not of Linnaeus): Niebuhr, 1775: XIII (index of species names)

Clupea baelama: Bloch & Schneider, 1801: 429 (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).

Thrissina baelama: Whitehead, 1965: 271 (Red Sea and Gulf of Aden).

Thryssa baelama: Whitehead et al., 1988 (in part): 425 (Red Sea); Wongratana et al., 1999 (in part): 1743 (Red Sea).

Neotype. BMNH 1963.12 .9.27, 69.5 mm SL, Red Sea near Port Sudan, Sudan.

Other material examined. 25 specimens, 57.5–103.2 mm SL: HUJ 20178, 2 specimens, 86.1–92.9 mm SL, Eilat , Israel; BPBM 27411 , 10 specimens, 75.0–85.0 mm SL, Port Sudan, Sudan; BMNH 1963.12.9.28–30, 3 specimens, 57.5–61.7 mm SL, Red Sea near Port Sudan, Sudan; BMNH 1963.12.9.1–19, 10 of 19 specimens, 83.3–103.2 mm SL, Gulf of Aden , Djibouti City, Djibouti or Mukalla, Yemen .

Diagnosis. A species of Thrissina with the following combination of characters: short maxilla, its posterior tip not

Abbreviations: D–P1 (distance between dorsal-fin origin and pectoral-fin insertion); D–P2 (distance between dorsal-fin origin and pelvicfin insertion); D–A (distance between origins of dorsal and anal fins); P1–P2 (distance between insertions of pectoral and pelvic fins); P2–A (distance between pelvic-fin insertion and anal-fin origin); TE ( Thrissina evermanni ); TP ( Thrissina polynemoides ); TS ( Thrissina samam ); TT ( Thrissina tuberculosa ).

reaching to posterior margin of opercle; first supramaxilla elongated, longer than half length of second; abdomen covered with 5–8 + 9–10 = 14–17 keeled scutes; no scutes anterior to pectoral fin; 1UGR 15–18, 1LGR 20–23, 1TGR 36–40; 2UGR 12–15, 2LGR 20–23, 2TGR 33–38; 3UGR 10–13, 3LGR 12–14, 3TGR 23–27; 4UGR 9–11, 4LGR 9–12, 4TGR 18–22; no distinct black blotches on dorsal fin; caudal peduncle rather deep [10.1–11.5% (mean 10.5%) of SL] and short [8.7–10.4% (usually shorter than 10%; mean 9.3%) of SL]; pre-dorsal-fin short, 48.0–50.4% of SL; snout short, 3.9–4.8% of SL; body rather elongate, 23.0–26.9% (rarely 21.2%; mean 24.5%) of SL.

Colour of fresh specimens. Body uniformly silver. Dorsum bluish-black, upper lateral surface of body greenish-blue. Lateral surface of mid-part of snout transparent. Narrow nonpigmented ring-like band surrounding anterior part of snout. Branches of cephalic lateralis sensory canal on upper part of gill opening orange, forming an orange blotch. Fin rays of dorsal and caudal fins greenish-grey. Dorsal and caudal fins, posteriorly margined black. Pectoral, pelvic, and anal fins whitish, semi-transparent. Iris and pupil bluish-black and silver, respectively.

Colour of preserved specimens. Body uniformly silver, sometimes pale whitish; dorsum dark; upper lateral surface light brown. Melanophores densely scattered over entire body and head. Narrow non-pigmented ring-like band surrounding anterior part of snout. Melanophores scattered along fin rays of dorsal and caudal fins. Pectoral, pelvic, and anal fins without melanophores. No distinct black blotches on dorsal fin.

Distribution. Thrissina baelama is distributed in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden ( Fig. 4 ).

Comparisons. Thrissina baelama has been considered conspecific with the four species re-described herein, all five being easily separable from all other congeners [except for Thrissina encrasicholoides (Bleeker, 1852) ] in having a short maxilla, posteriorly not reaching to the opercle posterior margin, and ventral scutes totaling fewer than 18. Moreover, the former five species differ from T. encrasicholoides in having the prepelvic scutes ending anteriorly below the pectoral fin (vs. one or two prepelvic scutes immediately behind the isthmus in T. encrasicholoides ; Nelson, 1982; Whitehead et al., 1988; Wongratana et al., 1999; Hata & Koeda, 2020; Fig. 1 ).

Remarks. Thrissina baelama ( Fabricius, 1775) [for a long time attributed incorrectly to P. S. Forsskål (e.g., Whitehead et al., 1988; Wongratana et al., 1999), but corrected by Fricke (2008)], was based on a clupeiform fish (specimen not retained) from Djiddae (currently Jeddah), Saudi Arabia ( Fricke, 2008). To date, six engraulid species [viz., Encrasicholina gloria Hata & Motomura, 2016 , Encrasicholina heteroloba ( Rüppell, 1837) , Encrasicholina macrocephala Hata & Motomura, 2015 , Encrasicholina pseudoheteroloba ( Hardenberg, 1933) , Stolephorus meteorum Hata, Lavoué, Bogorodsky, Alpermann & Motomura, 2023 , and T. baelama ] have been recorded from the Red Sea ( Whitehead, 1965; Whitehead et al., 1988; Hata & Motomura, 2016a, b; Hata et al., 2023; this study). However, Fabricius (1775) described Clupea baelama as having keeled scutes on the abdomen (from the pelvic fin to the anal-fin origin), the nominal species here identified as T. baelama being the only engraulid species from the Red Sea with postpelvic scutes [species of Encrasicholina and Stolephorus all lack postpelvic scutes ( Whitehead et al., 1988; Wongratana et al., 1999)]. Although the Djiddae specimen was originally described under the name “ Clupea baelama , encraischolus?” [ Clupea encrasicholus being a Linnaean species ( Linnaeus, 1758), currently treated as Engraulis encrasicholus (e.g., Whitehead et al., 1988; Nizinski & Munroe, 2016)], Fricke (2008) considered Clupea baelama Fabricius, 1775 to be a nomen nudum, on the basis of Fabricius’ (1775) description simply regarding “baelama” as an Arabic name for the species, rather than a new species description. However, Kottelat (2013) regarded C. baelama as an available name under Article 15.1 ( ICZN, 1999), due to the name having been proposed conditionally before 1961. In the original description ( Fabricius, 1775: p. 72), the name “ Clupea baelama , encrasicholus ?” was capitalised, but not italicised. Because the names of other species described as new in the same book (e.g., Clupea dorab , the description following that of C. baelama ), Fabricius (1775) can be regarded as having described C. baelama as a new species, although foreseeing the possibility that his C. baelama was conspecific with C. encrasicholus . Moreover, on page 72, Fabricius (1775) provided the local (Arabic) names “Làaf”, “Baelama”, and “Sardin”, all italicised and written in lowercase except for the first letter, a style repeated for similar notes following the other species described as new. On the basis of these facts, C. baelama is considered to be an available name using the Arabic name “baelama” as the specific name. Although Fricke (2008), who regarded C. baelama Fabricius, 1775 as an unavailable name, suggested “ Clupea baelama Bloch and Scheneider (1801) ” as an applicable name for Fabricius’s (1775) species, Bloch & Scheneider (1801) simply referred to the name, rather than describing a new species.

Because no type specimens of the nominal species are known, BMNH 1963.12.9.27 ( Fig. 3 ), collected from the Red Sea, near Port Sudan, is herein designated as the neotype of C. baelama , fixing that collection locality as the type locality of C. baelama under Article 76.3 ( ICZN, 1999).

Figures

Fig. 3. A, Neotype of Clupea baelama, BMNH 1963.12.9.27, 69.5 mm SL, Red Sea near Port Sudan, Sudan, and B, non-type specimen of Thrissina baelama (fresh condition) (BPBM 27411, 83.4 mm SL, Port Sudan, Sudan; courtesy of Bishop Museum).

Fig. 4. Distributional records of Thrissina baelama (triangles), T. evermanni (squares), T. polynemoides (diamonds), T. samam (circles), and T. tuberculosa (star), based on specimens examined in this study.

Fig. 1. A–D, Diagnostic characters of species previously identified as Thrissina baelama [A, lateral view of whole body, B, head (yellow line indicates posterior part of maxilla; blue line and broken lines indicate anterior and posterior margins of preopercle, respectively), C, first and second supramaxillae (left-right inverted), D, ventral view of isthmus (no scutes located anterior to pectoral fins)] and E, ventral view of isthmus of Thrissina encrasicholoides (scutes located anterior to pectoral fins) (A: fresh condition, 72.9 mm SL, Sulawesi, Indonesia; B–D: T. samam, NSMT-P 144842, 58.4 mm SL, Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan; E: T. encrasicholoides, NSMT-P 50306, 69.8 mm SL, Philippines) (B–E, alizarin stain).