''Thalassophryne maculosa'', the Cano toadfish, is a species of

toadfish {{short description, Common name used for fish Toadfish is the common name for a variety of species from several different families of fish, usually because of their toad-like appearance or calls using their swimbladder. File:OysterToadfish.jpeg, ...

which is common along the Caribbean coasts of South America from Colombia to

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

and Venezuela. It occurs on the sandy bottoms of reef flats, lagoons, and seaward edges of reefs where it sits partially buried in the substrate. It is a venomous species with the venom being delivered through spines and wounds from the spines have been known to cause severe symptoms of pain and illness that may persist for up to a week. A study of the

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

of ''Batrachus uranoscopus'', said to be a freshwater toadfish from Madagascar, in the ''Muséum national d’Histoire Naturelle'' in Paris found that it was most probably a misslabelled specimen of ''Thalassophryne maculosa'' and that subsequent records of ''Batrachus uranoscopus'' were attributable to ''

Allenbatrachus meridionalis ''Allenbatrachus'' is a genus of toadfishes found in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. The generic name honours the Humboldt State University ichthyologist George Allen (1923-2011), who introduced David Greenfield, who coined the name, t ...

'', a species found in Madagascar. ''T. maculosa'' is the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Thalassophryne ''Thalassophryne'' is a genus of toadfishes found in the western Atlantic Ocean with one species (''T. amazonica'') found in the Amazon River and some of its tributaries. Species There are currently six recognized species in this genus: * '' T ...

'', the generic name translates from

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

as "sea toad" while the

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for "spotted".

References

Batrachoididae Fish described in 1861 Taxa named by Albert Günther {{Batrachoidiformes-stub