The southern flathead sculpin (''Megalocottus taeniopterus'') is a species of marine
ray-finned fish belonging to the
family Cottidae, the typical sculpins. This species occurs in the northern
Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy
The southern flathead sculpin was first formally
described as ''Cottus taeniopterus'' by the Austrian
ichthyologist
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...
Rudolf Kner with its type locality given as
Decastris Bay near the mouth of the
Amur River
The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
in Russia.
Some authorities consider that this species as a
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
or
junior synonym
The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently.
* In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...
of ''
M. platycephalus''.
''
FishBase
FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web. '' still recognises two species within the genus ''
Megalocottus''.
Distribution
The Southern flathead sculpin is found in the northwestern Pacific Ocean in
Amur Liman,
Peter the Great Gulf and around southern
Sakhalin.
[
]
References
Southern flathead sculpin
Fish described in 1868
Taxa named by Rudolf Kner
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