Talk:Bathyclarias

Bathyclarias is endemic to Lake Malawi. Dinotopterus is confined to Lake Tanganyika. Greenwood (1961) revised Dinotopterus, synonymizing Bathyclarias with it and describing new L. Malawi species, as Dinotopterus. Anseaume & Teugels (1999) showed convincingly that the two genera are distinct. Their concluding paragraph (p. 216) states, "This study demonstrates that the differences between Dinotopterus and Bathyclarias are insufficient to maintain their synonymy. Moreover, irrespective of any morphological distinctions, their evolutionary history precludes their inclusion in the same genus. The authors therefore rehabilitate Bathyclarias as a valid genus (type species B. longibarbis) including 12 species endemic to Lake Malawi."

Oddly, the Catalog of Fishes lists only 8 of the 12 Bathyclarias species in this genus, while still recognizing the other 4 in Dinotopterus despite the action of Anseaume & Teugels (1999). The reason, apparently, is that the checklist of Ferraris (2007) erroneously also retains several L. Malawi species in Dinotopterus.

MKOliver (talk) 02:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

References & links

• Anseaume, L. & Teugels, G.G. 1999: On the rehabilitation of the clariid catfish genus Bathyclarias endemic to the East African Rift Lake Malawi. Journal of Fish Biology, 55: 405–419. DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8649.1999.tb00687.x
• Ferraris, Carl J. 2007: Checklist of catfishes, recent and fossil (Osteichthyes: Siluriformes), and catalogue of siluriform primary types. Zootaxa, 1418: 1–628. Full text
• Greenwood, P.H. 1961: A revision of the genus Dinotopterus Blgr. (Pisces, Clariidae) with notes on the comparative anatomy of the suprabranchial organs in the Clariidae. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Zoology, 7 (4): 215-241. BHL BioStor
• Bathyclarias and its species (including synonyms) in Catalog of Fishes, Eschmeyer, W.N., Fricke, R. & van der Laan, R. (eds.) 2024. Catalog of Fishes electronic version.