Mormyrus is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Mormyridae. They are weakly electric, enabling them to navigate, to find their prey, and to communicate with other electric fish.[1]
Species
Mormyrus caballus (above),
Mormyrus rume (below)
Mormyrus hasselquistii (above),
Mormyrus niloticus (below)
There are currently 22 recognized species in this genus:[2][3]
In culture
Bronze figurine of
Oxyrhynchus fish, Late Period-Ptolemaic Egypt
The
Medjed was a sacred fish in Ancient Egypt. At the city of Per-Medjed, better known as
Oxyrhynchus, whose name means "sharp-nosed" after the fish, archaeologists have found fishes depicted as bronze figurines, mural paintings, or wooden coffins in the shape of fishes with downturned snouts, with horned sun-disc crowns like those of the goddess
Hathor. The depictions have been described as resembling members of the genus
Mormyrus.
[4]
References
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^ Bullock, Theodore H.; Bodznick, D. A.; Northcutt, R. G. (1983). "The phylogenetic distribution of electroreception: Evidence for convergent evolution of a primitive vertebrate sense modality" (PDF). Brain Research Reviews. 6 (1): 25–46. doi:10.1016/0165-0173(83)90003-6. hdl:2027.42/25137. PMID 6616267. S2CID 15603518.
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^ "Mormyridae" (PDF). Deeplyfish- fishes of the world. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
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^ Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2017). Species of Mormyrus in FishBase. June 2017 version.
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^ Van Neer, Wim; Gonzalez, Jérôme (2019). "A Late Period fish deposit at Oxyrhynchus (el-Bahnasa, Egypt)". In Peters, Joris; McGlynn, George; Goebel, Veronika (eds.). Documenta Archaeobiologiae Animals: Cultural Identifiers In Ancient Societies? (PDF). Rahden, Westfalia, Germany: Verlag Marie Leidorf. ISBN 978-3-89646-674-7.
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