Enumeratio specierum piscium hucusque in Archipelago indico observatarum, adjectis habitationibus citationibusque, ubi descriptiones earum recentiores reperiuntur, nec non speciebus Musei Bleekeriani Bengalensibus, Japonicis, Capensibus Tasmanicisque

Abstract:

" Pieter Bleeker’s 1859 Enumeratio specierum piscium hucusque in Archipelago Indico observatarum is both a catalogue of the fishes then known from the Indian Archipelago and a synthesis of the author’s extensive ichthyological collections. The work enumerates more than 1,900 species from the archipelago, with additional material from Japan, China, Bengal, the Cape of Good Hope, and Tasmania, bringing the total represented in Bleeker’s museum to about 2,200 species. Bleeker emphasizes the extraordinary richness of the region, estimating that roughly one quarter of all then-known living fishes occurred in the Indian Archipelago. He contrasts this diversity with Europe and the Mediterranean, noting that the latter had yielded fewer than 600 species, whereas the waters around Amboina alone were already known to contain about 800. The catalogue organizes the archipelagic fauna into 415 genera and 110 families, provides synonymies, localities, and literature references, and identifies numerous taxa first recognized or described by Bleeker. He reports more than 1,100 new species from the Indian Archipelago, and about 1,200 when the additional regions are included. Representative genera treated include Scarus, Pomacentrus, Chromis, Uaru, Carcharias, and Zygaena. "