Taxonomy and Naming
The cleftbelly trevally is the only species in the genus Atropus, which is one of 31 genera in the jack family, Carangidae. The carangids are Perciform fishes in the suborder Percoidei.
The species was first scientifically described under the name of Brama atropos by German ichthyologists Marcus Elieser Bloch and Johann Gottlob Schneider in the massive 1801 volume of Systema Ichthyologiae iconibus cx illustratum, a document which is the taxonomic authority for many species. Bloch and Schneider placed the species in the genus Brama, within the pomfret family. The generic position of the species was revised twice, once being placed in the jack genus, Caranx, and finally into Atropus. The genus Atropus had been informally created by Georges Cuvier in 1817 as "Les Atropus", and was formally Latinized by Lorenz Oken, thus making him the author of the genus. A. atropos is the type species of the genus by monotypy. The type specimen was taken from the waters of Puducherry, in India.
The fact that the generic and specific names differ by a single letter has also led to the misspelling of the species as Atropus atropus in some publications. The species is most commonly referred to in English as the cleftbelly trevally, with other names including cleftbelly kingfish, Kuweh trevally and thin crevalle. It is also occasionally called the 'blackfin jack', but should not be confused with Hemicaranx zelotes, also known by that name.
Read more about this topic: Cleftbelly Trevally
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