Abstract

TOLEDO, Marcelo J.. Typupiscis lujanensis (Ameghino 1874), assignment to Ancistrus cirrhosus (Valenciennes 1836), the Ameghino-Burmeister rivalry and the beginning of the scientific photography in the Plata. Rev. Mus. Argent. Cienc. Nat. [online]. 2022, vol.24, n.1, pp.1-46. ISSN 1853-0400.  http://dx.doi.org/10.22179/revmacn.24.757.

In 1874, Florentino Ameghino (1853-1911) collected a strange catfish in the Luján river, founding a new species. He named it Typupiscis Lujanensis, took four photographs and presented it to the director of the Public Museum, Germán Burmeister, who dismisses the finding by erroneously classifying it as Hypostomus plecostomus. The analysis of three of these albumen photographs, together with penecontemporaneous testimonies on the morphology and the ethology of a specimen in captivity, allow to determine that the specimens fished in the Luján river in 1874 and in 1884, belong to Ancistrus cirrhosus, a species that was already collected in the Río de la Plata by d’Orbigny in 1827 and described by Valenciennes in 1847. The Annaratone’s albumen of Ancistrus, together with those of Panochtus commissioned by Burmeister in 1874 place them among the pioneers of the use of photography in natural sciences in Argentina.

Keywords : Ameghino; Hypostomus; Ancistrus; Luján; Burmeister; Albumen photography.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )