During recent research on a small number of freshwater sharks from Lake Jamoer, Netherlands New Guinea, I was struck by the fact that the consulted literature clearly showed a deplorable lack of agreement in the choice of a generic name for the species belonging to the genus Carcharhinus Blainville, sensu Bigelow & Schroeder (1948, p. 320), even among recent authors. Though by far the majority of contemporary authors now seem to have accepted Carcharhinus, a decreasing number still uses either Galeolamna Owen or Eulamia Gill, or occasionally even Carcharias Cuvier. In the restricted list of literature given at the end of the present paper, eleven of the post-1900 authors finally used Carcharhinus (or Carcharinus), only two used Galeolamna (Whitley, 1939 et seq.; Fowler, 1956), while of the three using Eulamia two subsequently accepted Carcharhinus (Munro, 1956; Smith, 1951 et seq.) and the third recently preferred Galeolamna (Fowler, 1956). Only two authors still used the apparently erroneous name Carcharias (Rendahl, 1922; Blegvad, 1944). A more comprehensive list of literature would have illustrated even much better the preference given by modern authors to Carcharhinus Blainville. As the authoritative monograph on Atlantic sharks by Bigelow & Schroeder (I.e.) will obviously be used for a considerable time as standard for nomenclatorial purposes, it is unfortunate that I am not able to agree with some of the arguments or conclusions these authors put forth in support of Carcharhinus Blainville. As will be discussed in more detail further on, I fear that a strict application of the International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature must lead to the acceptance of the rarely used name Galeolamna Owen. Emphasizing once more the fact that most authors now use the name Car-

Zoologische Mededelingen

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Naturalis journals & series

Boeseman, M. (1960). A tragedy of errors: the status of Carcharhinus blainville, 1816: Galeolamna owen, 1853; Eulamia gill, 1861; and the identity of Carcharhinus commersonii Blainville, 1825. Zoologische Mededelingen, 37(6), 81–100.