The Castelnau's fish collection and watercolour notebooks

In 1865, Jean-Theodore Lacordaire (professor of natural sciences at the University of Liège)
purchased more than thousand specimens collected by the famous explorer ‘Comte de
Castelnau’. Castelnau (London 1812 – Melbourne 1880) travelled around the world being
both explorer and diplomat. His most famous trip was the crossing of South America from
Mato Gross to Peru, coming back by the Amazon. He discovered and described several
species. The specimens collected by Castelnau present at the Museum of Zoology include
mainly birds and fishes. One of the fish specimens is labelled as Chrysophrys nasutus type
and is probably the (holo)type specimen for Cymatoceps nasutus. The fish specimens were
accompanied by five original watercolour notebooks, showing coloured fish-drawings made
by the collector at the catch moment. Despite the fact that some of the paintings were used in the past to restore the colours of the naturalised fishes, further research on the relations
between the collection and the notebooks should be made.