St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 2/Nature and Science/Fishes

by Hugh M. Smith, Lewis Radcliffe

A wonderful new family of fishes

A remarkable fish, previously unknown, was obtained on the Philippine expedition by the United States Fisheries steamer Albatross, which cruised around the island of Celebes, and made dredgings at various places off the coast and in
The remarkable little fish that is only about two inches long. the bays of that island. The fish is so unlike all others that it has been assigned to a new family. It is only a little more than two inches in length, but is of wonderful structure, especially in its head, which is nearly as long as the remainder of its body, while the length of the mouth is more than half that of the head. The mouth is described as cavernous and elastic, with “a trap into which food is lured and despatched.” In the roof of the mouth is a bulb which shines through a toothless space in the front of the upper jaw, and attracts prey, which, having entered the mouth, is prevented from escaping by two pairs of large, hinged, hooked teeth.

Hugh M. Smith and Lewis Radcliffe, of the United States Fisheries, have published a scientific description of this wonderful fish with the snare mouth, and have named it Thaumatichthys (from thauma, a wonder, and ichthus, a fish) pagidostomus (from pagis, a trap or snare, and stoma, a mouth).
An under and an upper view of the snare mouth.

Therefore, this unusually long scientific name for a very small fish simply means, “a wonder fish with a trap mouth.”