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Guppy Scientific Name Changes?


Guppy Guy
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Dr. Herbert R. Axelrod is easily my favorite author. I recently got one of his older books, “Tropical Fish as a Hobby, A Guide to Selection, Care and Breeding”, and there is a chapter on how the guppy got its name. It really is a fascinating story. My question is this: In the book, it refers to the guppy as “Lebistes reticulatus”, though I know that the current name is “Poecilia reticulata”. The book says that the guppy was originally named “P. reticulata”, but later changed to “L. reticulatus”. As this book is a bit outdated(though the information is wonderful!), 1969 to be exact, when was the guppy renamed to “P. reticulata”? 

In case you were wondering, “Poecilia” means “little variegated fish”, and “reticulata” means reticulated or netted.

Also, the name “Guppy” comes from the guppy’s third discoverer, Girardinua Guppii. I’m sure you can see “Guppy” in his name.

Here is the book. If you can find it, it is a fabulous book, and this isn’t close to the entire story of the guppies name. Here is a picture of the book:

 

image.jpg

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Wikipedia has a fairly detailed account of the name changes.  Whether it’s accurate or not, I couldn’t say.  It was likely pretty early (which fits with the wiki information) because all the names are listed as alternates in my “Exotic Aquarium Fishes” book by William T. Innes dated 1951 (first published in 1935).

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I used to have a few of Axelrod's books. 

I have seen more of the P. reticulata since the 90's, and in the 80's it depended on which wholesaler a fish shop was working with as to which name was used.... since I didn't see as much Lebistes reticulatus after I went to Mexico (and left the Southeast), I thought it was a location based thing?

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According to the Invasive Species Compendium:

"The guppy was first described as Poecilia reticulata from specimens collected in Venezuela by Wilhelm Peters in 1859, and then again independently from specimens collected in Barbados in 1861 by De Filippi as Lebistes poeciloides. Following this, RJ Lechmere Guppy sent specimens from Trinidad to the British Museum of Natural History, where they were given the name Girardinus guppii by Günther in 1866, and it is from this collector that the common name guppy was given. Regan recognised these synonyms and reclassified the species as Lebistes reticulatus in 1913, but this revision was later restored to the original name Poecilia reticulata by Rosen and Bailey (1963). P. reticulata has also been placed in the genera Poeciliodes, Haridichthys, Ananthophacelus, and Heterandia (Magurran, 2005). Besides ‘guppy’, common names for P. reticulata include millions fish, seven colours, rainbow fish and red-tail."

So, it sounds like there was a lot of collection at the time and it took a while to sort out who was the "first" to describe the species and thus which name got priority.  Happened all the time back in the day.  The last sentence is why scientists go to all the trouble and why in general common names are not as useful (I am sure this could start a whole argument with birders, but that's not where I was going with this. 😛). 

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