Pterygotrigla (Parapterygotrigla) brandesii ( Bleeker 1850 )

Richards, William J. & Yato, Takuji, 2014, Revision of the subgenus Parapterygotrigla (Pisces: Triglidae: Pterygotrigla), Zootaxa 3768 (1), pp. 23-42 : 37-38

Pterygotrigla (Parapterygotrigla) brandesii ( Bleeker 1850)

Trigla Brandesii Bleeker 1850: 18 (comment), 19 (name), 26 (original description, Banda Neira). Trigla brandesii Bleeker. DeBeaufort & Briggs 1962: 9 (115–116). Description based on translation of Bleeker’s original description.

Description. This is directly from DeBeaufort & Brigg’s (1962) translation of Bleeker’s Latin description.

“D 1. IX, D 2 I.12, P I. 10 +3, V. I.5. Height about 6.5. Head a little more than 2, forked anteriorly. Orbits and vertex without spines. Rostro-frontal profile very concave. Eye 4. Suborbitals without spines, the anterior ones reaching one eye diameter beyond rostrum, divergent, and twice as long as broad. Two nasal and two opercular spines, one stout preopercular spine, surpassing gill opening. Scales of sides small. Second to fourth stout dorsal spines longer than the others, less than depth of body. Pectorals broad and wing like (incomplete), caudal truncate. Head and body bright red. Colour of fins? Length 360 mm.”

Distribution. Banda Neira.

Discussion. M. J. P. van Oijen kindly supplied us with the following information in a letter dated 24 July 1990: “the type specimen was lost or actually scrapped by Bleeker (it was already in a bad state when Bleeker received it)”. Van Oijen kindly translated Bleeker’s Dutch as follows: “I cannot identify my Trigla specimen to any species I am familiar with. In honour of the sender I have named the species Trigla Brandesii. It is immediately recognizable by the more than usual elongation of the preorbital bones, by its spineless skull and backgroove, by its preopercle spine extending past the gill opening, its spineless lateral line, etc.” DeBeaufort & Briggs (1962) provided an English translation of the original Latin description as noted above. The description could fit almost any Pterygotrigla , but the presence of nasal spines align it with Parapterygotrigla . The stout preopercular spine extending beyond the gill opening is unusual and may be diagnostic. Since several species have long preorbital spines, specific identification is not possible as several species in this subgenus have been collected in the Banda Neira area. It remains a nomen dubium. The publication date for Bleeker’s paper has been recently corrected from 1851 to 1850 by Kottelat (2011).