All sorts of ancistrus...

König Löwe · Post by **König Löwe** » 05 Mar 2003, 21:28

There are lots of Loricariidae genus that has the ending "ancistrus". I was wondering what all the pre-fixes (correct word?) mean... There is "Hyp" (Hypancistrus), "Bary" (Baryancistrus) and "Olig" ancistrus to mention a few...

Could anyone explain what all these words mean? And what does "Ancistrus" mean? I found this refering to the subfamily Ancistrinae in the ICOSA lecture:

"The name of the subfamily is derived from the Greek "agchistron" or "agkhistron" and essentially means "barbed hook". "

Post by **Silurus** » 05 Mar 2003, 21:34

The prefix "hyp" in Hypancistrus refers to "hypo", the Greek word for few, because Hypancistrus has fewer teeth than Ancistrus.
Similarly, "bary" means wide (the wide head/body), and "oligo" means few (probably in reference to the number of bristles).
The name for Ancistrus probably refers to the bristles as well.

Caol_ila · Post by **Caol_ila** » 05 Mar 2003, 21:37

not answering your questions but this is very interesting for names and their origin
http://www.scotcat.com/scientific_names ... yright.htm

kgroenhoej · Post by **kgroenhoej** » 28 Mar 2003, 18:07

what about the rest? zon-, scobin- and par- and so forth...

-Klaus

Post by **Silurus** » 28 Mar 2003, 18:19

Scobina (Latin)=rasp
Zona (Latin)=belt, girdle
Para (Greek)=beside, near, by