Clupeocharax
genus of fishes
Clupeocharax is a monospecific genus of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Alestidae, the African tetras. The only species in the genus is Clupeocharax schoutedeni a fish that is endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Taxonomy
Clupeocharax was first proposed as a genus in 1926 by the French ichthyologist Jacques Pellegrin when he described its only species, Clupeocharax schoutedeni. The type locality of C. schoutedeni was given as Tondu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This taxon is classified within the African tetra family, Alestidae, in the order Characiformes.
Etymology
Clupeocharax combines Clupea, Latin for "herring", a reference to this peagic species herring-like body, with Charax, the type genus of the order Characiformes. Charax is derived from the Greek word chárax, which means a "pointed stake in a palisade", an allausion to these fishes having densely arranged sharp teeth and which forms the root of many genus names of characins. The specific name honours Henri Schouteden, a Belgian zoologist who collected specimens in the Belgian Congo, including the holotype of this taxon.
Description
Clupeocharax, as its name suggests, has a herring like body that grows to a maximum total length of 25 cm (9.8 in).
Distribution and habitat
Clupeocharax is endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo where it occurs in Lake Tumba and Lake Yandja, near Yangambi in the Central Congo River basin.
“Clupeocharax” enters the record as genus of fishes. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Clupeocharax, genus and fishes can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Clupeocharax” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Clupeocharax, genus and fishes provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19720767. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1926.
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This entry incorporates text from “Clupeocharax” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.