Guide to the exhibition of specimens illustrating the modification of the structure of animals in relation to flight.

  • National Museum of Ireland, Merrion Street
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Guide to the exhibition of specimens illustrating the modification of the structure of animals in relation to flight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    35/96 page 23
    48. African Fresh-water Flying-fish, IPantodon bucliholzi ) (fig. 15). Pantodon is a brightly coloured little fish of the Congo i and Niger Rivers, which leaps out of the water, and flutters I through the air for some little distance before falling back into the j river. Of interest in this connection is the fact that the first ' Congo specimen caught by a European was captured above the water by means of a butterfly net. Pantodon is one of the lower ' Teleostean fishes, belonging to a special family, the Pantodontidae, ' allied apparently to the Osteoglossidae. The length of the fish is about three or four inches. 49-50. American Fresh-water Flying-fish, Gastropelecus. ; Several species of Gastropelecus occur in the rivers of British ^ Guiana, and are remarkable for the manner in which they dart ! out of the water into the ah. The fishes are small and laterally Pig. 16.—A South-American Plying-flsh (Gastropelecus sternicla) (see 50). compressed, and with long and curved, but not particularly large pectoral fins. They dart forward for a distance of forty feet or more, beating the water with their pectoral fins, the upper part of the body alone being exposed, and the sharp keel of the breast acting as a cut-water. They then leave the water entirely for a distance of five or ten feet, and when exhausted fall sideways into the water again.* These fishes belong to the group of the Chara- cinid fishes, which includes the Cariba and Dorado of South America, and the Tiger-fish and Moon-fish of Africa. Two species are shown, Gastropelecus strigatus and G. sternicla (fig. 16). 51. Pegasus volitans, a little fish found on the sandy shoals of the coasts of Japan, China, India and Australia. The pectoral fins are broad and horizontal, like wings, but so far as locomotion in the air is concerned, the fishes can hardly do more than skim * See C. H. Eigenmann, Proshwater Fishes of British Guiana, Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum, v, Pittsburgh, 1912, p. 47.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3