Nannostomus harrisoni, (from the Greek: nanos = small, and the Latin stomus = relating to the mouth; harrisoni = in honor of geologist, John Burchmore Harrison),[1][2] is a species of pencil fish. Native to The Guianas, the species displays a single horizontal stripe of intense black, and blood red adornments on its fins. N. harrisoni is often confused with Nannostomus unifasciatus, another long, slender, single-striped species with similar profile and coloration, but N. harrisoni swims in a horizontal posture, as opposed to the snout-up oblique posture of N.unifasciatus, and the bright red adornments on the ventral fins of N. harrisoni are absent in N. unifasciatus. Though the recently described species N. grandis has been dubbed the largest member of the genus, adults of N. harrisoni commonly grow to a length of 70 mm, making it in fact the largest species of pencil fish described to date. It is commonly known as Harrison's pencilfish.[3]

Harrison's pencilfish
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Characiformes
Family: Lebiasinidae
Genus: Nannostomus
Species:
N. harrisoni
Binomial name
Nannostomus harrisoni

The fish is named in honor of John Burchmore Harrison (1856-1928), a Government Geologist in Georgetown, British Guiana, for his assistance during Eigenmann's 1908 expedition to the region.[4]

References edit

  1. ^ Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2013). Species of Nannostomus in FishBase. April 2013 version.
  2. ^ "Fish Name Etymology Project: Characiformes. Scharpf & Lazara". The Etyfish Project. 9 August 2016. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  3. ^ "ITIS report Nannostomus harrisoni TSN 163105". Retrieved 2008-04-06.
  4. ^ Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (22 September 2018). "Order CHARACIFORMES: Families CURIMATIDAE, PROCHILODONTIDAE, LEBIASINIDAE, CTENOLUCIIDAE and ACESTRORHYNCHIDAE". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 2 November 2021.