Introduction

It is now 150 years since Dr Pieter Bleeker published Volume I of his "Ichthyologiae Archipelagi Indici Prodromus", literally translated: "A precursor of the Fishes of the Indian Archipelago". In the preface of this work Bleeker wrote that he intended to publish an illustrated review of all ca 2000 species of the Indian. Volumes 1-IX of this work would be published from 1862-1878 as the "Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales Néêrlandaises". Unfortunately Bleeker's opus magnus would remain unfinished because of his death in January 1878.

In 1858 coloured drawings of almost all species were ready and a grant for the printing had been awarded by the Dutch Colonial Government. However, Bleeker decided to postpone the printing of the "Atlas" till he had returned to Europe as local printers in Batavia, his home town, could not meet his high demands.

As a precursor to his Atlas, Bleeker decided to publish a series of reviews of the fish fauna of the Indian archipelago. Each volume would be a compilation of all his earlier papers on one particular taxon and was intended as a kind of primer and exercise for what Bleeker envisaged to be his final work.

Vol. I of this series was a revision of the Order Siluri, the catfishes. After a critical description of the systematic work on this order by predecessors and contemporary ichthyologists, Bleeker divided the Siluri in four Families, viz. the Siluroidei, Aspredinoidei, Loricaroidei and Heterobranchoidei. In the Indian archipelago he only obtained representatives of the first and the last family. These were subdivided in Subfamilies, Phalanges, and Cohortes. Detailed descriptions were presented for 99 species. Many species earlier described by Bleeker were placed in synonymy.

Latin and Dutch

Like many papers that formed the basis of his revisions, the Prodromus volume was bilingual. Diagnostic keys and descriptions of genera and species were in Latin, whereas the history of Bleeker's own systematic research, the taxonomic reviews of the families, information on the specimens used for the descriptions, explanations of the scientific names, distinguishing characters, and data on species distribution, stomach contents, fishery and consumption were in Dutch. As a consequence, more than half of the text was unavailable to most ichthyologists.

Probably Bleeker explicitly wanted to reach a Dutch audience. He...