320 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



Genus Carcharhinus^ Blainville, 1 8 1 6 



Carcharhinus Blainville, Bull. Soc. philom. Paris, 1816: 121 ; J. Phys. Chem. Hist, nat., S^, 1816: 264; in 

 Vieillot, Faune Franc, 1825: 88; type species, C. commersonii Blainville, 1816, 1825.^* 



Generic Synonyms: 



Carcharinu! Cloquet, Diet. Sci. Nat., 7, 18 17: 77; and subsequent authors; emended spelling for Carcharhinus 



Blainville, 1 81 6. 

 Carcharias (in part) Cuvier, Regne Anim., 2, 1817: 125; and subsequent authors; not Carcharias Rafinesque, 



1810. 

 Frionodon (in part) Muller and Henle, Plagiost., 184.1: 35 (preoccupied by Horsfield, 1823, for mammals). 

 Galeolamna Owen, Cat. Osteol. Roy. Coll. Surg. London, /, 1853: 96, no. 427; type, G. greyi Owen. 



South Austialia.^ 

 Eulamia Gill, Ann. N. Y. Lye, 7, 1862: 401 (name), 410 (diagn.) ; type species, Carcharias {Prionodon) 



milberti Muller and Henle, 1841.' 



1. Often spelled Carcharinus. 



la. The generic name Carcharhinus has long been a "football" in Elasmobranch nomenclature. Briefly, its history is as 

 follows: Blainville, in his original diagnosis of the genus, listed the following species by name only: commersonii, 

 lamia, li'vidus, ustus, heterodon, verus, broussonetii, glaucus, caeruleus, megalofs, heterobranchialis, cormibicus, 

 monensis and vulfes. This assemblage includes representatives of Lamna Cuvier, 1817, as now understood 

 (cornubicus, monensis) ; of Alofias Rafinesque, 1810 {yulfes) ; of Prionace Cantor, 1849 {glaucus, caeruleus) \ 

 and of Carcharodon L. Agassiz, 1838 (^carc/mrias) ; also one (lamia) that by subsequent evidence apparently 

 represented the combination of some unidentifiable member of the genus here named Carcharhinus, with the teeth 

 of Galeocerdo. The remaining members of the list were nominal only, and have so remained except for commer- 

 sonii which was later stated by Blainville (in Vieillot, Faune Franc, 1825 : 90) to have been based by him on the 

 shark pictured by Laccpede, "T. t, pag. 169, pi. 5, fig. i." Unfortunately, this reference was erroneous, for pi. 5, 

 fig. 1 pictures a skate and not a shark. However, if it was pi. 8, fig. i, that was intended (as seems almost certain), 

 commersonii seems to have been a member of the genus now under discussion, though neither the illustration in 

 question nor the accompanying measurements of a "requin" sufiice for specific identification. 



The specific name commersonii seems then to have lain in abeyance until 1913, when Garman (Mem. Harv. 

 Mus. comp. ZooL, 36, 1913 : 140) revived it. However, his account appears to have been based on a combination 

 of longimanus Poey, 1861, with leucas Muller and Henle, 1841, and various authors following Garman have 

 subsequently used the name commersonii for one or the other of these two species, although there is no apparent 

 reason for identifying leucas with Lacepede's illustration, while longimanus certainly cannot be so identified. 



Bosc (Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., 5, 1816: 277) was the first to designate a type species for Carcharhinus in the 

 words "Squalus carcharias lui sert de type." But this designation is not valid, because the original assemblage of 

 species listed in the genus by Blainville (Bull. Soc. philom. Paris, 1816: 121 and J. Phys. Chem. Hist, nat., 1816: 

 264) did not include a "carcharias," although he did describe a Carc/iarhinus under that specific name subsequently 

 (in Vieillot, Faune Franc, 1825: 89). The next designation of a type was commersonii Blainville, 1816, by 

 Jordan and Gilbert (Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 16, 1883 : 22) ; and this selection appears to be valid, for while Fowler 

 (Proc Acad. nat. Sci. Philad., 60, 1908 : 62) has preferred vulfes as the type on the ground that commersonii was 

 a nomen nudem, thus reducing Carcharhinus to a synonym of Alofias Rafinesque, 1810, commersonii cannot prop- 

 erly be discarded, for, as pointed out above, the illustration on which it was based is identifiable with reasonable 

 certainty at least as to genus if not to species. 



2. According to Whitley (Aust. Zool., 9, 1939: 230), the type, which he saw in London, is the jaws of the com- 

 mon "Whaler Shark" of Australia (Carcharias brachyurus of Giinther, 1870, and C macrurus of Ramsay and 

 Ogilby, 1887) which seems clearly referable to Carcharhinus Blainville 18 16, as here recognized. 



3. In his first mention of the genus, Gill (Ann. N. Y. Lye, 7, 1S62 : 401) included only one species, "Eulamia lamia 

 Gill," which he stated to be the type, and Jordan and Gilbert (Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 16, 1883 : 60), and later Jordan 

 (Genera Fish., 3, 1919: 306), accepted this designation, changing the authorship of lamia, however, from "Gill" 

 to "Risso" in the one case and to "Rafinesque" in the other. But this alteration was not warranted, for "lamia Gill" 

 was a nomen nudem, no account having ever been published by Gill himself of any shark under that name, or 

 even any indication as to whether he referred to the "latnia" of Rafinesque, 1810 (a name substituted for Squalus 

 carcliarias Linnaeus, 1758, and therefore equivalent to Carcharodon), of Risso, 1826, or of Mijller and Henle, 

 1 84 1. Therefore, it is fortunate that the only species included by Gill under his diagnosis of Eulamia on a later 



