2017-11-26 Amazonas

H. H. BOECK

AMAZONAS

■ Pseudomugil reticulatus

■ Pseudomugil novaeguineae

■ ■ Pseudomugil pellucidus

■ Pseudomugil ivantsoffi

■ Pseudomugil luminatus

■ Pseudomugil paskai

■ Kiunga ballochi

■ Kiunga bleheri

■ Pseudomugil furcatus

■ Pseudomugil connieae

■ Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis

■ Pseudomugil signatus

■ Pseudomugil mellis

■ Pseudomugil signifer

■ Pseudomugil cyanodorsalis

■ Pseudomugil tenellus

■ Pseudomugil gertrudae

How it all began

The story of the blue-eyes began in 1857, when the

Austrian Navy frigate Novara made a two-year voyage

around the world. It started on April 30 in Trieste, later

to be ceded to Italy by Austria, and sailed to Gibraltar

and Madeira, then on to Rio de Janeiro, the Cape of

Good Hope, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Madras, the Nicobar

Islands, Singapore, Java, Manila, Hong Kong, Shanghai,

and Sydney. On the way back to Europe, the ship visited

New Zealand, Tahiti, and Chile, returning to Trieste on

November 26, 1859.

This was no holiday cruise—it was a scientific mis-

sion. The scientists on board collected some 23,000

specimens, including 440 minerals, 300 reptiles, 1,500

birds, 1,400 amphibians, 9,000 insects, and 1,330 fish-

es—including a little fish with blue eyes caught between

November 5 and December 7, 1858, near Sydney on the

east coast of Australia. The exact location is not known.

After the trip, the collection was evaluated and scientifi-

cally described.

Austrian zoologist and ichthyologist Rudolf Kner was

tasked with investigating and describing many of the

fishes, including Pseudomugil signifer, whose description

was published in 1866—some 150 years ago. He set up

a new genus, Pseudomugil, for this fish. “Pseudo” means

“fake” or “mock,” and “mugil” refers to a closely related

fish family, the Mugilidae (mullets). The species name

probably refers to the intensely colored fins; “signifer”

means “bearing a sign.” Since this fish inhabits a large

distribution area along the east coast of Australia, some

later collections have been identified by other names, but

they have been synonymized with the passage of time.

After a long pause: new species

Pseudomugil signifer was imported to Germany for the

first time in 1936. I do not know if it was kept in the

aquarium back then. For more than 40 years, it was the

only known species in the genus. It was not until 1907

that a related species was captured from a tributary of the

Lorentz River during an expedition to South New Guinea

led by Hendrikus Albertus Lorentz and preserved. Based

on the specimens collected on that trip, zoologist Max

Wilhelm Carl Weber described the species as Pseudomugil

novaeguineae in 1908. Pseudomugil novaeguineae found its

way into European aquariums only much later.

In the years 1907/1908, Hugo Merton undertook a

research trip to the Moluccas, Indonesia’s Spice Islands,

on behalf of the Senckenberg Nature Research Society.

On February 18, 1908, he discovered a small fish in a

grove of Sago Palms (Metroxylon sagu) on Tarangan, one

of the Aru Islands between New Guinea and northern

Australia. Three years later (1911), Weber described it as

P. gertrudae in honor of Merton’s wife, Gertrud. Pseudo-

mugil gertrudae was also found in Australia, where the

species is widespread. It was introduced to Germany for

the first time in 1982, became established, and today is

one of the most popular blue-eyes.

A great deal of time went by before American ichthy-

ologist R. R. Miller discovered the next species in Aus-

tralia on September 29, 1948, in a tributary of the East

Alligator River. Later on, populations were found at the

Cape York Peninsula and in Papua New Guinea (Bens-

bach River). For a long time this slender species lacked a

scientific identity, but in 1964, W. R. Taylor described it

and gave it the name Pseudomugil tenellus.

During the Fourth Archbold Expedition, organized

by the American Museum of Natural History, to Papua

New Guinea in August 1953, Hobart M. von Deusen

discovered a fish in the Peria Creek near Pumani. Nichols

described it as Pseudomugil furcatus in 1955, but it did

not find its way to Europe until 1981. Barry Crockford

and Gerald R. Allen brought live specimens from near

Distribution map of the

family Pseudomugilidae

(blue-eyes)