José Celestino Mutis and the gestation of ichthyology in the Viceroyalty of New Granada

José Celestino Mutis, mostly known for his contributions in the botanical field, however; made signifi -cant, if little known, scientific additions in fields from mathematics to zoology. In this paper, I present to the public, for the first time, Mutis’ work on ichthyology in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, the colonial Spanish denomination for the northern part of South America that includes the present-day countries of Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, work that, as Linnaeus himself stated, will immortalize Mutis for future generations.


INTRODUCTION
To speak about José Celestino Mutis (1732Mutis ( -1808 is to tell the story of a man who played a key role in initiating the study of sciences in Latin America, and particularly in what is now Colombia. He served as the medical doctor of Pedro Messía de la Cerda Viceroy of New Granada and also worked as a miner, botanist, naturalist, astronomer, cleric, and mathematics professor at the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario (now Rosario University). His mining work took place around 1777 at the Real de Minas de la Montuosa, in the jurisdiction of Pamplona (González Suárez 1905), and then in "El Sapo" mines near Ibagué (Mutis 1760(Mutis -1790. Mutis, however, is most recognized for his immense contributions to botany and as director of the Royal Botanical Expedition of the New Granada, an accomplishment that found favor with Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) himself. Inspired by Linnaeus's regard for Mutis, Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859 sought to meet Mutis. Humboldt and Mutis then developed a close relationship (Mutis 1760-1790, González Suárez 1905, Vezga 1936, Leal Hernández 2018. As documented in a letter that Linnaeus wrote to Mutis on July 3, 1761 (Mutis 1760(Mutis -1790, Linnaeus held Mutis in such high regard that he named a genus of plants (Mutisia) after him.
Since most plants and animals, he found in these territories were completely unknown for Europeans, the era during which Mutis arrived in New Granada was one of astounding wonder. One of Mutis's objectives was to publish a Natural History of America written by Americans (Mantilla and Díaz-Piedrahita 1995). His studies of these topics, particularly the zoological works of this great undertaking are little known. As Blanco Villero (2008) mentioned, the only study the botanist Mutis undertook at the behest of Linnaeus was the study of the behavior and ecology of ants, a document that would never reach the members of the Academy of Sciences in Upsala (Puig-Samper et al. 2004), the purpose of which was to guarantee the induction of Mutis into the Swedish Academy. Mantilla and Díaz-Piedrahita (1995), Blanco Villero (2008), Fernández and Wilson (2008), Wilson and Durán (2010), and recently Amat-García and Agudelo-Zamora  (Rueda 1986). Several authors, however, noted their arrival at the Royal Cabinet of Natural History in Madrid, Spain (Sarmiento 2009).
Consequently, the only known zoological drawing is that which can be found on the web page of the National Museum of Colombia (Museo Nacional de Colombia c2008), which comes from documents currently in the Royal Bo- where he stated: "On this day, I saw in the sea four taburones that followed the ship. One of them was terribly big. One may fear that a man would fall into the water on such occasions because his life would be in danger" and that they fished "two picudas [Sphyraena barracuda (Edwards, 1771)], whose genus I could not deduce even though they had very particular characteristics" (Mutis 1760(Mutis -1790. In the same way, he mentioned remoras (species of the Echeneidae family), but did not include any descriptive information that would allow one to distinguish which of the eight species reported for Colombia they were in Amat-García and Agudelo-Zamora 2020, Table 1), a list that strangely includes other aquatic species that are not fish (i.e., caiman and turtle, among others), but included at least 36 valid species, this being the first contribution to the ichthyology of the north of South America done by a naturalist. However, neither Dahl (1971) Table 1. Even though he did not use scientific names in his writings-as those did not yet exist and would only formally be described much later-these common names allow us to recognize the species that Mutis listed and described and give us a glimpse of the fish that existed during his times, most of which are still found in the same areas.

Sardina
Astyanax spp X X

Sardina blanca o grande
Astyanax spp X

Sardina de cadenita
Astyanax spp X

Tuna -Atún
It is necessary to indicate at this point that all the knowledge that Mutis was acquiring in his expeditions was not his own knowledge, this great awakening in terms of both botanical and zoological specimens was very surely provided by those people who always accompanied him. That is to say, his assistants, who we do speak of the rivers (ie Magdalena) were very surely the bogas or the indigenous people, these would be the true connoisseurs of the local fauna and flora, as mentioned by Fernández Piedrahíta (1688) in his writings on the captain (E. mutisii), or it is evidenced in the findings of Reichel-Dolmatoff (1985) in Monsú on fish for consumption in the lowlands of Colombia, or even more so the modifications that European kitchens underwent with many American products (Prestes-Carneiro and Béarez 2017) and especially the fish of this new continent (Langebaek 1987).
Now in a revision of Mutis lists, I found a total of 60 common names of fish used by Mutis during his travels that can be associated with 48 currently valid scientific names ( Table 1). As some common names were used for more than one taxon, a degree of ambiguity remains. The best correlation between common and scientific names is associated with the taxa recorded in the Magdalena River (29 species), followed by 17 from the Girón list, and 14 from the Luisa and Cumaná list.
But Mutis not only devoted himself to compiling lists of what he found in his travels, the sharpness of his observations, and clarity of his work, gave him a reputation outside of New Granada, so much so that the young baron von Humboldt and his companion Aimé Bonpland (1773-1858) divert from their plans to reach Quito through the Pacific and up the Magdalena River, in order to meet with him and admire his accomplishments (Hernández de Alba 1986).
From the anterior description, several things stand out: i.) The common name used was Capitán, now is the same common name that currently continues to be used for a catfish species of the savanna of Bogotá; ii.) The author of that genus (Mutis); iii.) The term Apod [Ápodo] to refers in zoology to the animals lacking legs; iv.) The branchial membranes, referring to the gills; v.) Cirriform tentacles, referring to the barbels of the species that later Humboldt would dedicate to Mutis; and vi.) A pinna dorsalis, which is the dorsal fin of the fish.
Clearly, the fish that Mutis pretend described is what we know today as Eremophilus mutisii Humboldt, 1805, and it is here that we enter into the speculative process about the "unknown" practices of Baron von Humboldt to publish or even copy the work of others. This argument can be based on a letter written by Mariano La Gasca (1776-1839) to Humboldt on May 3 rd, 1827, in which he stated that the Baron copied some illustrations: "I am firmly convinced that several of the drawings you published in your papers entitled Plantae aequinoctiales y Monographia Melastomae et Rhexiae are copied from the Flora of Bogotá" (Puig-Samper et al. 2004). This fact is highly significant, and although it has been debated for quite some time by experts (Puig-Samper et al. 2004, José Antonio Amaya, personal observation), Humboldt's vision is interesting as he did admit that plagiarism was something quite common in the middle of the 19th century (Allen 2016).
It was commonly known that Mutis was such a perfectionist that he never managed to publish much of his work (González Suárez 1905

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author declares that he has no conflict of interest FUNDING Germán Amat give founds for the acquisition of the documents that reside in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid (RJB)