114:. The last animal, the Australian lungfish, was an extraordinary fish whose existence had only become known to European researchers just a few years before. The addition of a platypus bill, seemingly shown in profile in Castelnau's accompanying figure, is also reported in the letter revealing the hoax. In selecting the name of the genus, Castelnau says "In our present knowledge of this singular fish, some inconvenience might arise from giving it a significant name; and I think it is preferable to design it under the mysterious historical one of
17:
96:, in which Count Castelnau gave his description with figures reproducing the sketches executed at the time by "a draughtsman" at Staiger's request. Doubts about the existence of the species were expressed as soon as 1881, when
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Staiger is quoted as saying the fish was brought to him by indigenous people who had obtained it around ten miles away. The components of the specimen were said by an anonymous confessor writing to the
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fish "discovered" in
Australia in August, 1872. Said to be poisonous, it could be found on some lists of Australian fishes through the 1930s.
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included it in a faunal list, but the name continued to appear throughout the twentieth century.
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in 1930 to have been sourced from the tail of an eel, a mullet's body, and the head of an
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Discovery of
Australia's Fishes: A History of Australian Ichthyology to 1930
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144:. Burnie, Tas.: National Library of Australia. 17 January 1934. p. 5
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Museum, and he forwarded a sketch and description of the fake to expert
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in 1879, who went on to give the "species" a scientific description.
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Helfman, G.; Collette, B.B.; Facey, D.E.; Bowen, B.W. (2009).
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168:"Descriptive catalogue of the fishes of Australia. Part IV"
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The
Diversity of Fishes: Biology, Evolution, and Ecology
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Proceedings of the
Linnean Society of New South Wales
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Proceedings of the
Linnean Society of New South Wales
36:, Australia, drawn from the cooked fish, and sent to
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56:The fish was a joke perpetrated by people at
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302:Castelnau, a mythical Australian fish.
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268:. John Wiley & Sons. p. 294.
206:"On a new ganoïd fish from Queensland"
64:, who prepared it from the body of a
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94:Linnean Society of New South Wales
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241:. Csiro Publishing. p. 126.
90:Francis de Laporte de Castelnau
38:Francis de Laporte de Castelnau
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298:Whitley, Gilbert P. (1933):
80:. They served it cooked for
20:Contemporary drawing of the
293:Australian Sporting Records
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295:(1998): 117. Bantam Books.
222:10.5962/bhl.part.22233
204:Castelnau, F. (1879).
185:10.5962/bhl.part.11870
84:, the director of the
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235:Saunders, B. (2012).
107:Sydney Morning Herald
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166:Macleay, W. (1881).
98:William John Macleay
82:Karl Theodor Staiger
30:Karl Theodor Staiger
347:19th-century hoaxes
337:Hoaxes in Australia
112:Australian lungfish
72:and the head of a
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32:, director of the
342:1872 in Australia
332:Hoaxes in science
300:Ompax spatuloides
136:"A Mythical Fish"
68:, the tail of an
46:Ompax spatuloides
26:Ompax spatuloides
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216:: 164–165.
178:: 202–387.
321:Categories
122:References
78:needlefish
62:Queensland
60:station,
305:Am. Nat.
86:Brisbane
74:platypus
58:Gayndah
24:"fish"
272:
245:
66:mullet
49:was a
116:Ompax
270:ISBN
243:ISBN
150:2013
51:hoax
22:hoax
218:doi
180:doi
118:."
76:or
70:eel
28:by
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
