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“Mostri Marini”: Constantine S. Rafinesque's names for three of Antonino Mongitore's Sicilian whales

Archives of Natural History
By: , , and 
https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2020.0659

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Abstract

In 1815, the naturalist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783–1840) previewed three new species of cetaceans – Delphinus dalippus, Physeter urganantus and Oxypterus mongitori – that he intended to describe from Sicily based on illustrations in Antonino Mongitore's published work Della Sicilia ricercata nelle cose più memorabili (1742–1743). Although formal descriptions of the three species were never published, Rafinesque's reference to Mongitore's illustrations made the names available by “indication”. The names, nonetheless, fell into obscurity, most likely a result of contemporary taxonomists' lack of access to Mongitore's work. Rafinesque's names remain relevant to the history of cetacean taxonomy, although they are no longer applicable. Moreover, the animals associated with these names add to the historical record of whale strandings in the Mediterranean. For these reasons, we studied the illustrations Rafinesque indicated for his cetaceans and reviewed Mongitore's accompanying text, which together provide sufficient distinctive characters that two of the three animals can be confidently identified with modern species, namely the sperm whale, Physeter catodon (Linnaeus, 1758), and the false killer whale, Pseudorca crassidens (Owen, 1846). Had Rafinesque's name D. dalippus been recognized for what it was, it would have had priority over P. crassidens as the earliest scientific name for the false killer whale.

Suggested Citation

Woodman, N., Mead, J.G., McGowen, M.R., 2020, “Mostri Marini”: Constantine S. Rafinesque's names for three of Antonino Mongitore's Sicilian whales: Archives of Natural History, v. 47, no. 2, p. 344-355, https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2020.0659.

Study Area

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title “Mostri Marini”: Constantine S. Rafinesque's names for three of Antonino Mongitore's Sicilian whales
Series title Archives of Natural History
DOI 10.3366/anh.2020.0659
Volume 47
Issue 2
Year Published 2020
Language English
Publisher University of Edinburgh Press
Contributing office(s) Eastern Ecological Science Center
Description 12 p.
First page 344
Last page 355
Other Geospatial Mediterranean Sea
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