Mormyrus
Appearance
Mormyrus | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Actinopterygii |
Order: | Osteoglossiformes |
Family: | Mormyridae |
Genus: | Mormyrus Linnaeus, 1758 |
Species | |
See text | |
Synonyms | |
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Mormyrus is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Mormyridae. They are weakly electric, enabling them to navigate, to find their prey, and to communicate with other electric fish.[1]
Species
[edit]There are currently 22 recognized species in this genus:[2][3]
- Mormyrus bernhardi Pellegrin, 1926 (Bernhard's elephant-snout fish)
- Mormyrus caballus Boulenger, 1898
- Mormyrus caballus asinus Boulenger, 1915
- Mormyrus caballus bumbanus Boulenger, 1909
- Mormyrus caballus caballus Boulenger, 1898
- Mormyrus caballus lualabae Reizer, 1964
- Mormyrus casalis Vinciguerra, 1922 (Somali mormyrid)
- Mormyrus caschive Linnaeus, 1758 (Eastern bottlenose elephant snout)
- Mormyrus cyaneus T. R. Roberts & D. J. Stewart, 1976 (Lower Congo River mormyrid)
- Mormyrus goheeni Fowler, 1919 (Liberian mormyrid)
- Mormyrus hasselquistii Valenciennes, 1847 (Elephant snout)
- Mormyrus hildebrandti W. K. H. Peters 1882 (Hildebrandt's elephant-snout fish)
- Mormyrus iriodes T. R. Roberts & D. J. Stewart, 1976 (Inga mormyrid)
- Mormyrus kannume Forsskål, 1775 (Elephant-snout fish)
- Mormyrus lacerda Castelnau, 1861 (Western bottlenose mormyrid)
- Mormyrus longirostris W. K. H. Peters, 1852 (Eastern bottlenose mormyrid)
- Mormyrus macrocephalus Worthington, 1929 (largehead mormyrid)
- Mormyrus macrophthalmus Günther, 1866 (Niger mormyrid)
- Mormyrus niloticus (Bloch & J. G. Schneider, 1801) (Egyptian trunkfish)
- Mormyrus ovis Boulenger, 1898
- Mormyrus rume Valenciennes, 1847 (Senegal mormyrid)
- Mormyrus rume proboscirostris Boulenger, 1898
- Mormyrus rume rume Valenciennes 1847
- Mormyrus subundulatus T. R. Roberts, 1989 (Bandama mormyrid)
- Mormyrus tapirus Pappenheim 1905
- Mormyrus tenuirostris W. K. H. Peters, 1882 (Athi elephant-snout fish)
- Mormyrus thomasi Pellegrin, 1938 (French Congo mormyrid)
In culture
[edit]
The Medjed was a sacred fish in Ancient Egypt. At the city of Per-Medjed, better known as Oxyrhynchus, whose name means "sharp-nosed" after the fish, archaeologists have found fishes depicted as bronze figurines, mural paintings, or wooden coffins in the shape of fishes with downturned snouts, with horned sun-disc crowns like those of the goddess Hathor. The depictions have been described as resembling members of the genus Mormyrus.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ Bullock, Theodore H.; Bodznick, D. A.; Northcutt, R. G. (1983). "The phylogenetic distribution of electroreception: Evidence for convergent evolution of a primitive vertebrate sense modality" (PDF). Brain Research Reviews. 6 (1): 25–46. doi:10.1016/0165-0173(83)90003-6. hdl:2027.42/25137. PMID 6616267. S2CID 15603518.
- ^ "Mormyridae" (PDF). Deeplyfish- fishes of the world. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
- ^ Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Species in genus Mormyrus". FishBase. June 2017 version.
- ^ Van Neer, Wim; Gonzalez, Jérôme (2019). "A Late Period fish deposit at Oxyrhynchus (el-Bahnasa, Egypt)". In Peters, Joris; McGlynn, George; Goebel, Veronika (eds.). Documenta Archaeobiologiae Animals: Cultural Identifiers In Ancient Societies? (PDF). Rahden, Westfalia, Germany: Verlag Marie Leidorf. ISBN 978-3-89646-674-7.