mislead by an error in the type locality, given as Cayenne (French Guiana), but 

 which is presumably from an area near Paramaribo, Surinam (Boeseman 1972). 



Schomburgk (1841) presented a colorful description of a fish that he called 

 "Dawalla of the Arawaaks", for which he gave the name Hypothalmus dawalla. 

 Bleeker (1858) subsequently replaced the name with Davalla schomburgldi, the 

 specific epithet of which apparently was intended to avoid tautonomy of his 

 proposed new genus (Boeseman 1972). The name Davalla was thought by 

 Boeseman (1972) to represent a misspelling of the original species name, although it 

 is more probable that Bleeker simply repeated the alternate spelling that 

 accompanied Schomburgk's original figure (Schomburgk 1841: fig. 9). 

 Schomburgk's generic designation was subsequently emended to Hypophthalmus by 

 most authors, begmning with Bleeker (1858), an action that obviously represented a 

 correction of Schomburgk's misspelling of the type genus of the family 

 Hypophthalmidae. Eigenmann and Eigenmann (1888, 1890) recombined the name 

 asAgeneiosus dawalla, and later authors placed Davalla in the synonymy of 

 Ageneiosus. Based on the original account and figure, there is no question that 

 Hypothalmus dawalla Schomburgk represents a junior synonym oi Ageneiosus 

 brevifilis Valenciennes. As discussed by Boeseman (1972), Bleeker apparently 

 proposed Davalla schomburgldi without examining the two specimens collected by 

 Dieperink in Surinam, which was the material that Valenciennes had earlier based 

 his description of^. fcrcvi^ on. r , '■^- ■ 



r' •' i . ^^ : Status of Tetranematichthys ^ 



The genus Tetranematichthys was proposed as a replacement name by 

 Bleeker (1858) to emphasize the distinctiveness oi Ageneiosus quadrifilis Kner 

 (1858a). The main diagnostic feature of this monotypic form, as originally 



