Illustrations of the zoology of South Africa : consisting chiefly of figures and descriptions of the objects of natural history collected during an expedition into the interior of South Africa, in the years 1834, 1835, and 1836; fitted out by "the Cape of Good Hope Association for exploring Central Africa" : together with a summary of African zoology, and an inquiry into the geographical ranges of species in that quarter of the globe. [4], Pisces

Abstract

Bagrus Capensis 8 ECHINOKHINUS OBESUS. square ; the ventral fins short, broader behind than at their bases, and their posterior edges slightly undulated ; the caudal fin entire, somewhat triangular and slightly falciform, the upper portion high above the line of the back, the lower scarcely below the line of the body immediately in front of it. Lateral line very distinct, commencing above branchial openings, and extending nearly without curve or undulation to the commencement of the caudal fin, from thence it ascends the latter, and extends along it, nearer to its anterior than posterior edge, until it reaches its upper extremity ; at its origin this line is nearer to the middle of the back than the base of the pectoral fin ; to the touch it feels slightly rough, which arises from its being beset with a number of minute prickles, which are most distinctly seen in preserved specimens. The surface of the skin both on the body and fins is more or less sprinkled with strong bony-looking spines, with large circular and flattened bases, which are striated from the centre towards the circumference. These spines vary in size as well as form, some being hooked, others quite straight ; in some places they are disposed in clusters, in others they are solitary, and on the extremity of the muzzle are nearly wanting. The appendages to the ventral fins in the male seldom extend much beyond their posterior margins. DIMENSIONS. Feet. Inches. Length from the tip of the nose to the end of the caudal fin 6 65 the inquiry, as deserving the attention of those naturalists who have an opportunity of examining specimens of the European species. The sacs to which I allude, two in number, lie under the skin of the abdomen, immediately in front of the anus, are of a pyriform shape, and each, by means of a narrow duct, opens into the longitudinal groove, which exists on the inner side of each anal appendage. In none of the sacs which I examined was I able to detect any fluid beyond what was barely sufficient to lubricate their inner surfaces, and from whence it proceeded I could not discover; no glandular structure was noticed. Farther enquiries, I have no doubt, will shew them to be essential to the proper performance of the functions belonging to the appendages; and as tending to give probability to that supposition, I may merely observe that by injecting water into one of these sacs, the corresponding appendage was distended to a great size, and its apex expanded, flattened, and rendered well adapted for fixing upon, or seizing extraneous bodies.

Mitochondrial phylogeny of grey mullets (Acanthopterygii: Mugilidae) suggests high proportion of cryptic species

“…I the lineage from Myanmar. Two sister-lineages were observed within P. macrolepis, separated by 3.5 % (under the K2P model) or 3.7% (under the T93+G+I model) net nucleotide divergence, all three markers combined: one lineage was exclusive to the western Indian Ocean west of the Seychelles Islands, including the Seychelles Islands and including South Africa, the type-locality [33] while the other lineage had a wide geographic distribution, as it consisted of all haplotypes sampled east of the Seychelles Islands, from the Maldives Islands to Fiji [13]. The latter is here provisionally designated as Planiliza sp.…”

Here be dragons: a phylogenetic and biogeographical study of theSmaug warrenispecies complex (Squamata: Cordylidae) in southern Africa

“…Zonurus warreni was described by Boulenger () on the basis of two male specimens from Ubombo in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa. Van Dam () later described Z. breyeri from the farm Geelhoutkop, east of Vaalwater, Limpopo Province, identifying it as a close relative of Z. giganteus (Smith, ). In the same paper he described Z. barbertonensis from Barberton, Mpumalanga Province, and considered it similar to Z. warreni and Z. breyeri .…”

Towards the phylogenetic placement of the enigmatic African genus Prolabeops Schultz, 1941

“…In addition to the global “Cypriniform data set,” the authors created an “African Smiliogastrinae data subset” only including all the available species of the African Smiliogastrinae and of the Asian genus Systomus McClelland 1838 as an out‐group as well as representative species of the genera Pseudobarbus, Sedercypris Skelton et al ., 2018 and Cheilobarbus Smith, 1841 for which sequence information of at least two mitochondrial protein coding genes ( i.e ., ATP 6, ATP 8 and cytochrome b) was available on GenBank (see Supporting Information Table S2 ). The authors incorporated the corresponding sequence data into the subsampled alignment, using the same strategy of concatenating individual gene alignments and filling missing sequence information with multi‐N strings as outlined earlier.…”

“…According to him the genus is tentatively grouped with the “Afrotropical diploid small barbs” of the subfamily Smiliogastrinae, i . e ., the genera Enteromius , Barboides Brüning, 1929 , Barbopsis Di Caporiacco, 1926 , Clypeobarbus Fowler, 1936 , Caecobarbus Boulenger, 1921 and Pseudobarbus Smith, 1841 (the latter being tetraploid).…”