SPECIAL PAPER 1

Price: non-members 40 euros, members: 35 euros

Nolf D., De Potter H. Lafond-Grellety J., 2009, Hommage à Joseph CHAINE et Jean DUVERGIER. Diversité et variabilité des otolithes des poissons.

(59 textpages, 149 plates, 1 textfigure)

Text is in French with a large abstract in English. ISBN: 9789081492508

Summary: The «Recherches sur les otolithes des poissons. Etude descriptive et comparative de la sagitta des téléostéens» published by Joseph Chaine between 1934 and 1958, and initiated in collaboration with Jean Duvergier for the first volume, still stands today as the most important treatise on the external morphology of Recent fish otoliths. However, the lack of references to this “bible of otoliths“ in many modern publications suggests that the nine volumes, already long out of print and published in two different journals, are not easy accessible today. That alone provides a fully sufficient rational for a new and revised edition of these volumes, but it was especially the discovery of the three unpublished volumes of this series that motivated us to publish the present book. Additionally, publication is important because the first of the unpublished volumes contains an iconography of north-eastern Atlantic gadids that is of a superior quality than ever before available.

We have found it necessary to make a significant nomenclatorial revision of the included species, and to provide a classificatory format for them. In the present edition, all 378 illustrated species are ordered according to the classification of Nelson (2004), a widely used summary of contemporary knowledge of fish systematics. All illustrations are arranged in new plates, where they succeed each other according to this standard classification. The species are labelled with their current valid taxonomic names, which in many cases differ from the names used by Chaine and Duvergier.

Finally a short comment concerning the habitat and the geographic distribution of each species is provided.

ORDER INFORMATION:

please contact us at: palaeontos@gmail.com