Common Torpedo - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The common torpedo and other electric rays were familiar to the peoples of classical antiquity. Torpedo was the Roman name for electric rays, derived from Latin torpere meaning "to be numb". Carl Linnaeus, known as the "father of taxonomy", scientifically described the common torpedo as Raja torpedo in the 1758 tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. However, the common torpedo also appeared in at least 52 pre-Linnaean sources under various names such as Torpedo, Raja tota lævis, Torpedo maculosa, and Torpedo Sinûs Persici. These early accounts, including Linnaeus's, confounded the common torpedo with other electric ray species. As Linnaeus did not indicate any type specimens, the designation of a lectotype or neotype is warranted in the interest of taxonomic stability. This measure has yet to be taken.

André Marie Constant Duméril was the first author to refer to Torpedo as a genus, in his 1806 Zoologie analytique, ou méthode naturelle de classification des animaux. Duméril did not name any Torpedo species; the first author to do so was probably Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who assigned Linnaeus's Raja torpedo to the genus Torpedo in 1838. Since at the time T. torpedo was the only member of the genus, it became the type species. Within the genus Torpedo, the common torpedo is placed within the subgenus Torpedo, which differs from the other subgenus Tetronarce in having spiracles with papillate rims and ornate dorsal coloration. This species may also be referred colloquially to as crampfish, cramp ray, or torpedo ray.