Abstract

[Excerpt from p. 140].Macdonald and Barron gave an excellent description and plate of the Seven-gilled Shark of Bass Strait, which they called Heptranchus indicus, quoting no authority for the specific name. The identity of this species with the supposedly congeneric Notidanus indicus Agassiz was disputed by Garman (1913). In 1873, Macdonald referred to the Bass Strait specimens as Heptranchus griseus, without stating that this was a new name, or perhaps regarding it as conspecific with the European Squalus griseus Gmelin or Hexanchus griseus Rafinesque, Günther's "Catalogue," with these names in Notidanus, having been issued in the meantime. Apparently the Australian form has no name of its own, so I am proposing one here which was suggested in a letter from J. D. Ogilby to A. R. McCulloch, dated October 22, 1909, as follows: "I have long been of opinion that our Heptranchias requires a new name and so list it as H. macdonaldi; however, as it does not occur here [Queensland], I hand it over unreservedly to you." To this, McCulloch had appended a note in his card-index: "We have received a small specimen from Port Jackson which accurately agrees with Muller and Henle's figure of H. indicus. Macdonald and Barron's figure in P.Z.S. of a specimen from Bass Straits is very good, and there should be little difficulty in deciding if it is correctly identified." It has thus remained for the present writer to instate Ogilby's name, which does not appear to have been published hitherto.

 
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Bibliographic Data

Short Form
Whitley, 1931, Rec. Aust. Mus. 18(4): 138–160
Author
Gilbert P. Whitley
Year
1931
Title
Studies in ichthyology. No. 5
Serial Title
Records of the Australian Museum
Volume
18
Issue
4
Start Page
138
End Page
160
DOI
10.3853/j.0067-1975.18.1931.722
Language
en
Plates
plates xx–xxi
Date Published
21 June 1931
Cover Date
21 June 1931
ISSN (print)
0067-1975
CODEN
RAUMAJ
Publisher
The Australian Museum
Place Published
Sydney, Australia
Digitized
05 February 2009
Available Online
05 March 2009
Reference Number
722
EndNote
722.enw
Title Page
722.pdf
File size: 85kB
Complete Work
722_complete.pdf
File size: 3118kB