Article

Fish

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Fish

Fish constitute one of the most significant biological resources of the Malay Peninsula and the surrounding waters, spanning an estimated 2,000 species of which not less than 500 are of economic importance and approximately 250 are valuable marine food fishes [1, p. 184]. The region’s thousand miles of coastline between the Indian Ocean and the China Sea, combined with extensive freshwater systems, support a fishery of considerable potential that, as of the early twentieth century, remained largely undeveloped due to the absence of cold storage, scientific research, and systematic management [1, pp. 179]. Fish occupy a central place in the Malay diet, in local ecological relationships, and in the administrative concerns of colonial public health and economic development, as documented across more than four decades of the Society’s literature.

Scope and Taxonomic Survey

The earliest substantial treatment of Malayan fishes in the Society’s journal is C. N. Maxwell’s Malayan Fishes (1921), a comprehensive handbook that pairs scientific taxonomy with Malay nomenclature for hundreds of species [1]. Maxwell, Director of Supplies for the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, was not an ichthyologist but a colonial supply officer writing from an administrative perspective; he explicitly acknowledged that “the ichthyologists are not linguists and the linguists are not ichthyologists” and positioned his work as a temporary bridge until specialist fishery bulletins could be produced [1, p. 179]. The work was prompted by the Profiteering Commission of 1920, which found itself “impressed and much handicapped by the absence of any recorded information relating to fish and fisheries” [1, p. 179].

Maxwell’s survey covers the full range of Malayan fish families, from the smallest cyprinodontids to the largest deep-water species. Among the most notable entries are the Keretang (Epinephelus pantherinus), which commonly reaches two to three hundred pounds in weight; Maxwell and a Malay companion landed a specimen estimated at 6 piculs (approximately 800 pounds), requiring them to sink their boat to load it [1, p. 208]. The Tenggiri (Spanish Mackerel) is singled out as the finest fish in Malayan waters [1]. A saw-fish measuring 23 feet 6 inches (exclusive of the saw) was taken in the Bay of Bengal by the Government trawler Golden Crown, believed to be the largest recorded fish; the largest saw in the Raffles Museum, Singapore, measures 5 feet 10¾ inches [1, p. 228].

In the freshwater domain, M. W. F. Tweedie’s 1952 list of Malay names for freshwater fishes provides a curated correlation between vernacular names and scientific taxonomy for strictly freshwater species in the Malay Peninsula [2]. Working from field knowledge and the specimen records of C. S. Ogilvie at Kuala Tahan, Pahang, Tweedie sought to remedy the inadequate ichthyological grounding of earlier name lists by Maxwell and Wilkinson, including only names for which he was “reasonably sure” the specific identification was correct [2, p. 62]. The list spans approximately eighty entries covering Cyprinids, Catfishes, Murrels, Loaches, Eels, Perches, and other freshwater groups, with roughly thirty entries restricted to or best documented from Pahang [2, pp. 63–67]. Among the largest freshwater species identified are the Tapah (Wallago tweediei), capable of exceeding 100 pounds in weight and 5 feet in length, and the Temelian (Probarbus jullieni), the largest of the Malayan Cyprinids, reaching over 50 pounds [2, p. 67].

Ecological and Public Health Dimensions

The ecological role of freshwater fish in the control of mosquito-borne disease was investigated by Dr. R. Hanitsch, Director of the Raffles Museum and Library in Singapore, in a government-commissioned report published in 1912 [3]. The study was prompted by the Colonial Office’s decision to distribute the “Millions” fish (Girardinus poeciloides) from Barbados to tropical colonies as a biological control agent against mosquito larvae and malaria [3, p. 26]. Before introducing this foreign species, Hanitsch was asked to determine whether the indigenous Haplochilus panchax (the Ikan mata lalat of the Malays), a closely allied cyprinodontid of similar small size, might serve the same purpose [3, p. 26].

Hanitsch’s field surveys of Singapore’s ditches and pools, combined with direct feeding experiments, identified several species that consumed mosquito larvae to varying degrees. The Fighting Fish (Betta pugnax, the Ikan pelaga) proved the most effective, eating mosquito larvae “greedily within a few seconds” of being offered them [3, p. 27]. The Ikan mata lalat itself ate mosquito larvae “but not greedily” [3, p. 27]. The Hemirhamphus fluviatilis (Ikan jolong jolong) was confirmed as herbivorous, feeding on algae and waterweeds, and did not consume mosquito larvae [3, p. 27]. Young Ikan sepat (Osphromenus trichopterus) ate larvae “though not ravenously,” while full-grown specimens “seemed to despise them” [3, pp. 27–28]. Young Ikan betok (Climbing Perch, Anabas scandens) and young Ikan aruan (Ophiocephalus striatus) both ate mosquito larvae greedily [3, pp. 28–29].

Field observations provided compelling natural evidence for the larvivorous effect of fish. In the Teluk Blangah swamps, the most malarial region in Singapore, Anopheles larvae were found only in dense waterweed mats and empty tins—sites where no fish could operate—while open water containing six species of fish was free of larvae [3, p. 29]. A pair of adjacent pools off Gaylang Road offered a striking natural experiment: one pool “thick and black with mosquito larvæ (Culex)” contained no fish, while a pool “only about a yard off” was free of larvae and contained Ikan mata lalat [3, p. 29]. Hanitsch concluded that while fish could not address the greater area of the town where mosquitoes bred in inaccessible sites, the experiment might be of use in the outskirts, and recommended the introduction of small larvivorous species such as the Ikan mata lalat and especially the Ikan pelaga into cleaned pools [3, p. 30].

Economic and Administrative Framework

The economic potential of Malaya’s fisheries was a central concern of Maxwell’s 1921 handbook, which argued that the region’s resources were being squandered through ignorance, poor transport infrastructure, and environmental degradation [1]. A fish costing $15 a pikul at sea cost $80 a pikul in Kuala Lumpur, 30 miles away, due to the absence of cold storage and the inefficiency of ice-based transport [1, p. 187]. Maxwell identified numerous commercially underutilised species—deep-water species accessible only by trawling, for instance—and argued that the absence of cold storage meant that hundreds of tons of prime fish caught on the East coast were dried for export rather than consumed fresh [1].

A distinctive and urgent thread in Maxwell’s work is the destruction of freshwater fisheries by tin-mining silt. He recalls the West coast rivers as “fine clear streams” now reduced to “thick turbid streams carrying a heavy burden of slime and silt,” and traces the causal chain from silt pollution through to the simultaneous destruction of rice cultivation, arguing that “where you can grow rice you can catch fish and where you can no longer catch fish you cannot grow rice” [1]. The decline of the Terubok (Shad) fishery, which he attributes to silt-choked rivers preventing spawning ascents, is presented as a case study in irreversible loss; fish now taken are “mostly spent fish in which state they are positively unwholesome,” and he has observed them “choked by silt in their attempt to ascend the rivers” [1, p. 186].

Maxwell also raised concerns about the interception of larval fish by the thousands of Chinese fish-traps (pompang, ambai, langgai) operating between Penang and Port Swettenham, which he believed were capturing the “Bunga ayer”—almost certainly the larval forms of valuable food fish—during their denatant drift toward coastal nurseries [1]. He insisted this point required urgent scientific confirmation.

Ethnoichthyology and Nomenclature

The linguistic logic of Malay fish nomenclature is addressed by Tweedie, who notes that the word ikan (fish) is prepended where the name is a descriptive term with an independent primary meaning, as in Ikan Pasir (sand-fish, i.e. Loach) versus pasir alone meaning simply “sand” [2, p. 62]. Several entries note that the same Malay name is applied to both juvenile and adult stages of a species—for example, Bulu Ayam for young Oxygaster, Kërengkek for young Puntioplites, and Pěroi for young Osteochilus hasselti—and that congeneric or morphologically similar species of no gastronomic interest may share a single name [2, p. 62]. The list is explicitly restricted to strictly freshwater species, excluding brackish-water forms and anadromous species that enter rivers from the sea [2, p. 62].

Among the more culturally resonant entries, Sisah Nabi (freshwater flatfishes Achiroides achira and Synaptura panoides) derives its name from a local legend concerning the Prophet, in which a fish was caught, half eaten, and the remainder mercifully restored to the water [2, p. 67]. The Sepat Siam (Trichogaster pectoralis) is recorded as an introduced species from Siam, of economic importance in rice-fields [2, p. 66].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on fish reveals a clear evolution in scope and methodology across the first half of the twentieth century. The earliest contribution, Hanitsch’s 1912 report, is a focused government-commissioned study addressing a single applied question—whether indigenous fish could serve as biological control agents for malaria—conducted through direct field observation and feeding experiments in Singapore [3]. It represents the intersection of colonial public health policy and natural history, situated firmly within the administrative apparatus of the Straits Settlements [3, p. 26].

Maxwell’s 1921 handbook marks a decisive shift in scale and ambition, moving from a single-species investigation to a comprehensive survey of the entire Malayan fish fauna, driven by the administrative need for recorded information on fisheries resources [1]. Its methodological limitations are acknowledged by the author himself, who positions the work as a provisional bridge pending specialist research [1, p. 179]. The work draws heavily on secondary literature from Australia, the Philippines, and India, reflecting the limited state of local ichthyological research at the time [1].

Tweedie’s 1952 list represents a further refinement, narrowing the focus to freshwater species and establishing a methodologically transparent framework for correlating vernacular names with taxonomic identifications [2]. His explicit criterion of confidence—only including names for which he was “reasonably sure” the identification was correct—sets a standard that later compilations would build upon [2, p. 62]. The reliance on the specimen records of C. S. Ogilvie at Kuala Tahan, Pahang, highlights the importance of regional field collections in grounding ethnoichthyological work [2, p. 62].

The short museum records by Smedley, such as his 1926 note on a large specimen of the beaked ray Rhinobatis thouini [4], illustrate the complementary role of the Raffles Museum in documenting individual specimens and resolving taxonomic questions, including the conclusion that the peculiar expansion of the snout in that species is characteristic of the female [4, p. 262]. Together, these records trace a trajectory from applied colonial administration through comprehensive survey to methodologically rigorous ethnoichthyology, each stage building on and correcting the limitations of its predecessors.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. C.N. Maxwell (1921). Malayan fishes JSBRAS 84: 179–280. Read on JSTOR
  2. M.W.F. Tweedie (1952). Malay names of freshwater fishes JMBRAS 25(1): 62–67. Read on JSTOR
  3. Hanitsch R (1912). Mosquito larvae and freshwater fish JSBRAS 62: 26–30. Read on JSTOR
  4. N. Smedley (1926). On a large specimen of the beaked ray Rhinobatis thouini (Lacep.). Records of the Raffles Museum, No. 24 JMBRAS 4(2): 261–262. Read on JSTOR