The Scientific Name of the Nehu, an Engraulid Baitfish of the 
Hawaiian Islands^ 
William A. Gosline^ 
The nehu, a small baitfish commonly used 
for tuna fishing in Hawaiian waters, was 
originally described as Stolephorus purpureus in 
1900 by Fowler (1900, Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 
Proc.y p. 497). Since that time it has been 
variously assigned to the genera Stolephorus, 
Anchovia, Anchoviella, PngrauUs, and Scuten- 
graulis, and no agreement has been reached. 
Though future revision of the anchovies on a 
world-wide basis may show that the nehu 
belongs elsewhere, under the present classi- 
fication of the group it may best be allocated 
to the genus in which it was placed originally 
as Stolephorus purpureus. 
Of the five genera to which the nehu has 
been assigned, Stolephorus, Anchoviella, and 
Engraulis deserve most serious consideration. 
Jordan and Seale in their now outdated 
"Review of the Engraulidae" (1926, Mus. 
Comp. ZooL, Bui. 67: 403) place the nehu in 
the genus Anchoviella. Hardenberg (1933, 
Natuurk. Tijdschr. Neder. -Indie 93: 242) be- 
lieves that the three genera Engraulis, An- 
choviella, and Stolephorus as defined by Jordan 
and Seale cannot be maintained and should 
be combined under the oldest generic name, 
Stolephorus. Hildebrand (1943, Bingham Ocean. 
Coll., Bui. 8(2): 108) resurrects the generic 
name Anchoviella for some American an- 
chovies, but on a different basis from An- 
choviella of Jordan and Seale. Hildebrand fails 
to state how his Anchoviella differs from 
Stolephorus, and a comparison between the 
American Anchoviella as defined by Hilde- 
brand and the Indo-West-Pacific Stolephorus 
remains to be made. Nevertheless, since 
Stolephorus is the older of the two generic 
names and since the Hawaiian Islands have a 
^Contribution No. 5, Hawaii Marine Laboratory. 
^Department of Zoology, University of Hawaii. 
Manuscript received November 29, 1950. 
basically Indo-West Pacific fauna, it seems 
safe to conclude that the nehu belongs with 
Stolephorus rather than with Anchoviella. 
Both Hildebrand {pp. cit.) and Blackburn 
(1950, Austral. Jour. Mar. Freshwater Res. 
1(1): 5) likewise resurrect Engraulis from 
Hardenberg’s synonymy of Stolephorus. The 
nehu does not belong in Engraulis as defined 
by these authors and thus, by elimination, 
remains with Stolephorus. 
Two other problems of nehu nomencla- 
ture, though long since solved, continue to 
haunt ichthyological literature. One is the 
application of the name Stolephorus itself. 
Lacepede, who proposed the name, included 
under it species of two different families and 
designated no genotype. The question there- 
fore arose as to which genus of which family 
the name Stolephorus should be applied. This 
matter was eventually resolved by the Inter- 
national Commission on Zoological Nomen- 
clature, which (Opinion 93) designated 
Stolephorus commersonianus , a fish of the nehu 
group, as genotype of Stolephorus. Unfor- 
tunately, Fowler, Whitley, and Blackburn 
continue to apply the name Stolephorus erro- 
neously to a genus of herring-like fishes. 
Finally, Anchoviella mauii was described by 
Fowler and Bean (1924, B. S. Natl. Mus., 
Proc. 63(19): 4) as new and as from Maui. 
However, Fowler has since pointed out (1934, 
Bernice P. Bishop Mus., Mem. 11(6): 387) that 
the species is not new and that the Maui 
record is not correct. The nehu, Stolephorus 
purpureus, thus remains the only anchovy re- 
corded from the Hawaiian Islands. 
I am particularly indebted to Prof. C. L. 
Hubbs of the Scripps Institution of Ocean- 
ography and Prof. G. S. Myers of Stanford 
University for their advice on this matter. 
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