Perca argentea Linnaeus, 1758

Parenti, Paolo, Kullander, Sven & Randall, John E., 2013, Taxonomic And Nomenclatural Status Of Perca Argentea Linnaeus, 1758, Perca Vaila Osbeck, 1770, And Perca Indica Gronow In Gray, 1854 (Osteichthyes, Terapontidae And Moronidae), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 61 (1), pp. 303-310 : 303-306

Perca argentea Linnaeus

Perca argentea Linnaeus (1758: 294) , one of 29 species described in the genus Perca by Linnaeus (1758), was briefly diagnosed as having the dorsal fins joined, caudal fin forked, nostrils tubular, D. XII,10. A. III,8. P. 12. V. I,5. C. 17. No type locality was given.

Between the 10 th (1758) and the 12 th (1766) editions of Systema Naturae, Linnaeus published the second volume of the Museum Adolphi Frederici ( Linnaeus, 1764) containing the description of two new species and additional details for a number of species previously named and described in the 1758 edition. The second volume of Museum Adolphi Frederici was already prepared along with the first, but financial difficulties delayed the publication (Fernholm & Wheeler, 1983), and consequently Linnaeus (1758) has references to and diagnoses of species that were described more fully only in Linnaeus (1764). In Linnaeus (1764) nine species were listed in the genus Perca , among them Perca argentea Linnaeus (1764: 86) , already formally described in Linnaeus (1758: 294). Linnaeus (1764) provided the following morphological details in addition to the 1758 diagnosis: “preopercle finely serrate, opercle with a strong spine; teeth in jaws pointed; six branchiostegal rays; body shape very similar to that of Cyprinus auratus ; dorsal profile rounded anteriorly; a black blotch on the spinous portion of dorsal fin.” Four species of Perca in the 1758 edition of Systema Naturae, argentea , scriba , mediterranea , and vittata , were described without locality. Linnaeus (1764) added “Habitat in America” for all four of these; none are valid localities for these species. Perca scriba (now Serranus scriba ) and P. mediterranea (now Symphodus mediterraneus ) are from the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean ( Tortonese, 1973); P. vittata (valid as Plectorhinchus vittatus ) is from the Indo-Pacific (Randall & Johnson, 2000). As indicated below, the locality given by Linnaeus for of P. argentea is also erroneous.

After its description, P. argentea was listed in several encyclopedic compilations of world fishes between the end of eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. A brief summary of the most important entries follows. All

cited “America” as type locality if such information was given.

A full account of P. argentea appeared first in Müller (1774: 243).

Bonnaterre (1788: 135) described P. argentea as “La ciliée” and gave a detailed account based on Museum Adolphi Frederici.

Gmelin (1789: 1322) listed P. argentea and cited Linnaeus (1764). He provided only a short description, including finray counts, the shape of nostrils, and the presence of a black spot on the spinous portion of the dorsal fin.

Walbaum (1792: 336) reproduced the complete description of P. argentea given by Linnaeus (1764), and added to the diagnosis the presence of two longitudinal dark stripes. He did not mention the locality and regarded it as the same specimen described and figured by Seba (1759: 77, pl. XXVII, Fig. 13), of which Walbaum reported only the diagnosis (silvery; two longitudinal stripes; caudal fin forked). The specimen considered to be identical to P. argentea was described by Seba as follows (translated from the Latin): dorsal profile convex, jaws equal; scales on body thin, silvery, adherent, slightly rough; body completely silvery except for the presence of two longitudinal pale, barely visible, reddish stripes; dorsal fin notched with 11 spines and 10–11 soft rays, anal fin with 3 spines and 8–9 soft rays, ventral fin with one spine and 5 soft rays, pectorals pale and oblong; preopercle, opercle, and lacrimal serrate; total length about two inches.

Bloch & Schneider (1801: 92) listed P. argentea among doubtful species of the genus Perca ; they reported Linnaeus’ short description (1766). However, Linnaeus’ species name appears a second time under Holocentrus , as H. argenteus on p. 321.

Lacepède (1802: 205) and Sonnini (1802: 169) reported P. argentea in Lutjanus .

Shaw (1803: 438) listed the species as Sparus argenteus , and included a short diagnosis. He cited as the source of his information Linnaeus (1764) and Gmelin (1789).

No mention of P. argentea was given by Cuvier & Valenciennes (1828, 1829), and they did not include Perca argentea Cuvier et al. (1827: 6) . Incidentally, Cuvier had erroneously identified the aforementioned specimen figured by Seba (1759: 77, pl. 27, Fig. 13) as Holocentrus marginatus Bloch [an incorrect subsequent spelling of Epinephelus marginalis Bloch, 1793 ]. This conclusion was repeated by Cuvier & Valenciennes (1828: 301), where he misprinted the figure number as 3 instead of 13. Parenti & Desoutter (2007) recently identified this specimen as Terapon theraps ( Cuvier, 1829) .

Günther (1859) did not include a species account for Perca argentea , but mentioned the name in passing in his brief

description of Therapon cinereus , based on a specimen from India.

Jordan & Evermann (1896–1900) did not list P. argentea in their comprehensive, four-volume Fishes of North and Middle America.

Although P. argentea clearly belongs to the speciose assemblage of lower percoid fishes, its precise identity was never resolved, and it was not included in Fernholm & Wheeler’s (1983) catalogue of the Linnaean types in NRM. Based on the species accounts given in the Museum Adolphi Frederici and in the 12 th edition of Systema Naturae, specifically the black-striped silvery body with a black blotch on the spinous portion of the dorsal fin, P. argentea is most likely a member of the Terapontidae , an Indo-Pacific family of perciform fishes found in coastal marine and brackish habitats, with some species occurring in freshwater. Using the key to species in the revision of the Terapontidae ( Vari, 1978) , and based on the colour pattern and the presence of a strong opercular spine, we conclude that P. argentea represents a species of the genus Terapon . In particular, as explained below, it is considered a senior synonym of Terapon theraps ( Cuvier, 1829) . Although the black blotch on the spinous dorsal fin is not diagnostic for T. theraps , the species is also characterised by the presence of two dark longitudinal stripes on body, which, however, are less evident in young specimens and may be barely visible in preserved specimens ( Fig. 1 ). Interestingly, Therapon cinereus Cuvier, 1829 , which was described as having the body silvery without apparent stripes, but with a black spot on spinous dorsal, has been regarded as a synonym of T. theraps ( Vari, 1978) .

No type material was known for P. argentea until Eschmeyer (1998). Type material, if extant, should be present in the collection of King Adolf Fredrik now present in the Swedish Museum of Natural History, where it was transferred in 1801. Collection registers maintained at the NRM can be used to trace specimens to Adolf Fredrik’s collection, but not all of the species in Linnaeus (1754, 1764) are present in those records. Nonetheless, specimens judged by conservation condition and of very old date, apparently 18 th century, and compatible with descriptions in Seba (1759), a major source of the King’s exotic specimens, and/or with Linnaeus’s descriptions of reptiles and fishes in Linnaeus (1749, 1754, 1758, 1764), are present in the collections of NRM and the Museum of Evolution in Uppsala. In NRM, there are two old specimens labelled as Perca argentea , without further information, and which both are referable to Terapon . One of them (NRM 4295) has been catalogued, on undocumented grounds, as holotype of P. argentea ( Figs. 2 , 3 ). Although dark stripes are no longer visible, the specimen is well preserved. Its accession history is incomplete, but the condition is similar to that of other old specimens in the Adolf Fredrik collection, and it is definitely an 18 th century specimen. It also represents a species that should be present in the Adolf Fredrik collection, and is compatible with the description provided by Linnaeus (1764). The specimen is absent from the catalogue of the museum of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (presently the Swedish Museum of Natural History) prepared in 1800 by its curator Conrad Quensel, so it certain that it was not present at NRM up till 1800. After the King’s collection had been acquired, Quensel’s successor, Olof Swartz, made an inventory of the Academy’s collection completed in 1809, with 338 fish specimens, annotating specimens from the King’s collection. There is no entry in Swartz’s catalogue that can be identified as Perca argentea . The oldest label attached to NRM 4295 was made by Swartz’s successor, Johan Wilhelm Dalman within his active period 1824–1828 and reads Perca Holocentrus . This name could refer to Perca holocentrus Euphrasén (1795) , a replacement name for Holocentrus jogo Bloch , but based on a West Indies specimen. No specimens from Euphrasén’s West Indies collection are known to exist in the NRM collection, and it is uncertain from where Dalman may have obtained the name. A much younger label from the curatorship of Fredrik Adam Smitt in the late 1900s identifies the specimen as Therapon argenteus C.V. and coming from the old collection; this name probably based on Günther’s (1859: 283) description of what is now Mesopristes argenteus ( Cuvier, 1829) , which is not the same species as Perca argentea Linnaeus. The absence of the species from Quensel’s inventory suggests strongly that NRM 4295 was not present in the Academy’s old, and relatively small collection. The absence from the 1809 inventory is not conclusive. Swartz was instructed to specially mark specimens from the King’s collection (Fernholm & Wheeler, 1983), but he most likely would not have done so with specimens lacking labels. Dalman lists 22 objects as being without labels, although he may have meant undetermined. In between 1809 and 1828, the Academy acquired also a large private collection containing exotic fishes (Fernholm & Wheeler, 1983), but it was kept separate from the King’s collection and Dalman does not list from that collection any specimens that could represent a Terapon . Based on circumstantial evidence, NRM 4295 is therefore considered to represent type material of Perca argentea . As explained by Fernholm & Wheeler (1983), very few specimens are missing from the Adolf Fredrik collection, but the documentation of specimens can range from a complete set of labels dating back to the original repository at Drottningholm, to estimated age and accordance with Linnaeus’s description and/or figure (e.g., Mediannikov et al., 2012).

Specimens of T. theraps can be easily distinguished from the other two species of the genus, T. puta Cuvier, 1829 and T. jarbua ( Forsskål, 1775) by having fewer lateral-line scales (46–56 vs more than 70). The newly recognised holotype of P. argentea (NRM 4295) has 56 lateral-line scales.

The status of Perca argentea Linnaeus as a senior synonym of the long-accepted name T. theraps Cuvier , is mandated by Article 23.9 (“reversal of precedence”) of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999: 27). The two conditions that require the younger synonym to be recognised as the valid name are fulfilled: to our knowledge, Perca argentea has not been used as a valid name since 1899 (Art. 23.9.1.1), and Terapon theraps (occasionally as Therapon theraps ) has been used as valid name in at least 25 publications by at least 10 authors in a time span of 10 years within the last 50 years (Art. 23.9.1.2). The following list of 25 publications have cited the name Terapon theraps: Menasveta (1981) ; Ahmad (1983); Talwar & Kacker (1984); Bianchi (1985); Heemstra (1986); Kailola (1987); Vasanth & Reddy (1987); Ahmad & Lal Dhar (1987); Allen & Steene (1988); Russell & Houston (1989); Paxton et al. (1989); Kuiter (1992); Ali et al., (1993); Fouda & Hermosa (1993); Senta et al. (1993); Blaber et al. (1994); Goren & Dor (1994); Randall (1995); Randall et al. (1997); Johnson (1999); Ni & Kwok (1999); Vari (1978, 2000); Sadovy & Cornish (2000); and Hutchins (2001). Therefore, the validity of Terapon theraps Cuvier is maintained.

Figures

Fig. 1. Terapon theraps, 74 mm SL, Bahrain. (Photograph by: John E. Randall).

Fig. 2. The holotype (unique): NRM 4295-1 of Perca argentea Linnaeus. (Photograph by: Sven Kullander).

Fig. 3. The holotype (unique) NRM 4295-1 of Perca argentea Linnaeus. Detail of the head region showing the strong opercular spine. (Photograph by: Sven Kullander).