Encyclopedia
Mormyrus
Genus of ray-finned fishes
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.
01Species
There are currently 22 recognized species in this genus:
- 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)
02In culture
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.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mormyrus”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Mormyrus.jpg by Zaire, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Matériaux pour la faune du Congo (6299123534).jpg by Boulenger, George Albert; Green, J.; Smit, P. J., Public domain
- The fishes of the Nile (Pl. XI) (6961605933).jpg by Boulenger, George Albert; Loat, L., Public domain
- Oxyrhynchus fish Late Period-Ptolemaic (cropped).jpg by Walters Art Museum, CC0
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