Gonorynchus Scopoli, 1777

Kottelat, Maurice, 2016, On Gonorynchus, Gonorhynchus, Gonorinchus, Gonorhinchus and Gonorrhynchus, and some other names of labeonine fishes (Teleostei: Gonorynchidae and Cyprinidae), Zootaxa 4178 (3), pp. 443-450 : 443-444

Gonorynchus Scopoli, 1777

The name Gonorynchus was made available by Scopoli (1777: 450). Scopoli used a non-binominal species name already created by Gronow ( Gronovius 1763: 55) for a fish from the Cape of Good Hope. The name is not available from Gronovius (1763) because this work was rejected for nomenclatural purposes by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN 1954 : 281 [Opinion 261]).

Scopoli did not include species-group names in Gonorynchus and it is not clear who first included species in the genus. Cyprinus gonorynchus Linné, 1766 has been tacitly considered as the type species, which is logical since it is based on the species described by Gronovius (1763), but formally, this does not constitute a type-species fixation. There is possibly no mention of Gonorynchus Scopoli until Jordan & Evermann (1917: 42) listed it as a replacement name for ‘ Gonorynchus Gronovius’, should this last one not be accepted as available. As understood by Jordan & Evermann, ‘ Gonorynchus Gronovius’ included a single species, “ Cyprinus gonorhynchus Gmelin, [1789 : 1422]”, which in fact is an incorrect subsequent spelling of C. gonorynchus Linné, 1766: 528 , also based on Gronovius (1763); this fixed C. gonorhynchus Linné as type species of Gonorynchus Scopoli. However , all references to Gonorynchus , Gonorhynchus, Gonorinchus etc. between 1777 and 1919 of which I am aware do not refer to Gonorynchus Scopoli but to Gonorhynchus Cuvier, 1816 (see below). Gonorynchus Scopoli has apparently not been used as valid name until Fowler (1941: 728).

The name Gonorynchus [under its various spellings] became widely used for marine fishes (beaked sandfishes; Grande 1999) and is the name on which the family-group names Gonor[h]ynchidae and Gonor[h]ynchiformes are based. These names, and the associated fishes, are well known in ichthyological literature and the family and order are presently of undisputed validity. It is important to avoid confusion with a similarly spelled hill-stream cyprinid genus.