The "winged leaf" fish, that is the meaning of the Genus name of the common freshwater angelfish. The angelfish was originally described by Lichtenstein in 1823 and he named it Zeus scalaris. Georges Cuvier later changed this to Platax scalaris in 1831. It was changed again in 1840 to Pterophyllum scalaris by Heckel. The last change was in 1862 by Gunther who changed the species name to scalare. Thus we have today the angelfish:Pterophyllum scalare.All Pterophyllumspecies originate from the Amazon Basin, Orinoco Basin and various rivers in the Guiana Shield in tropical South America.

Species

The currently recognized species in this genus are

• Pterophyllum altum 

• Pterophyllum leopoldi 

• Pterophyllum scalare