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Catalog of Fishes - version of 15 March 2012
This version is edited by Bill Eschmeyer as the general editor. Ron Fricke devoted much time to improving references, many of which had not been examined in 15 to 25 years. Other primary participants are Dennis Polack (Data Analyst), Nicolas Bailly (Data Analyst), Thomas Litz (Aquarium Species/Literature Specialist) and Christopher Scharpf (Data entry, Literature). Jon Fong prepared the online version and other programming tasks.
A summary paper was published in 2010 from the Catalog of Fishes database that might be of interest to users of the Catalog. "Marine fish diversity: history of knowledge and discovery (Pisces)." By William N. Eschmeyer, Ronald Fricke, Jon D. Fong & Dennis A. Polack. Zootaxa, no. 2525:19-50 (2 July 2010, open access, click title to download).
We recorded 344 new species and 26 new genera/subgenera in 2011. So far in 2012, we show 53 new species and 3 new genera.
As always, notifying us of missed taxa descriptions and errors in the database or providing PDFs of recent papers is most welcome.
Links to online references: We continue to add available pdfs for literature, especially early literature from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Some museums are making all their publications available free online. We continue to include new links. Please contact us if you find an incorrect link or have links to add.
New for 15 March 2012. This version includes many improvements in the references made by Ron Fricke. Note: sometimes a title will differ slightly between the contents, pdfs and the title on the publication itself. Usually we provide the title on the publication itself.
Bill Eschmeyer edited type localities and standardized many place names. Our style it to use current place names found on an English map (or from Wikipedia and Google sites). Should you need original localities, they can be found in the original descriptions or from particular museum holdings (often online).
Many scientific names of fish species are based on personal names; some were found to be incorrect. For example, Jordan and co-workers spelled Japanese names ending in "a" with a terminal "e" as in matsubarae; that is acceptable, with the name Latinized first. So those names do not end in "i". Remarks are provided by Eschmeyer in this version for most species based on personal names. For a review of this very technical subject, see Dubois 2007: Zootaxa No. 1550:49-68.
Note: Change of Bleeker publication dates. The date of publication for papers by Pieter Bleeker have been in doubt since their publication in the mid-1800s. A recent analysis by Maurice Kottelat (2011) treats the Bleeker publications resulting from his work in Indonesia (1842-1860). Publications are placed in chronological order, and the year of publication of some publications has changed. Dates of publication determined by Kottelat are here given in notes under the references.
Kottelat, M. 2011. Pieter Bleeker in the Netherlands East Indies (10 March 1842 -ca. 21 September 1860): new biographical data and a chronology of his zoological publications. Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters, v. 22 (no. 1):11-94.
New treatment of synonyms: Often an author revises a genus and treats a species in detail but does not mention the species synonyms (if any). If he/she does not mention the synonyms (rather common in recent treatments) and moves the valid “parent” species to a different genus, do we move the synonyms automatically, although the revising author may not have studied or assessed the synonyms? In the past, we did not move the synonyms. Typically, this often resulted in the synonyms being in a different current genus than the valid parent species. We now move the synonyms to the genus of the valid parent species, but no “status reference” showing the new generic placement is found with the synonym. Some synonyms will be moved incorrectly, but it is considered more desirable to have the potential synonyms in the same current genus as the valid parent species.
Some conventions used in the Catalog
Author plus date and a species code: The code of Zoological Nomenclature does not require a comma between the author and date, only a suggestion. In fact, we consider that confusing as that is traditionally used to show a cited reference in journal publications and not a species authorship and date. Genus+species+author+date (with parentheses as needed) is a (nearly) unique code or formula to define every species [2 known exceptions]. So you will find no comma between the author and date. Some journals are now treating species in this way.
Figures: Under a new species heading, some journals list (a) only the major figure, some list (b) all figures (including maps, habitats and graphs), and (c) some give figures showing the full view and any illustrated parts of the species. We give all figures that show a full view and any anatomical part of the species, so our listing of figures often differs from the treatment by a journal in the original description (as listed in the species heading).
Type localities: We give a current place name that one will find on a Google search or in an ‘English’ atlas. For some species described many years ago, one may find both the original locality and in parentheses a modern name for that locality. Many collections now have their holdings on-line, and it is there one can usually find the actual original locality if needed. Current localities are often augmented by additional information, such as coordinates.
Authors: We have added initials in brackets to distinguish all individual authors of genera and species.
Other Sections Species of Fishes by family/subfamily -- Prepared by Bill Eschmeyer and Jon Fong from the 15 March 2012 version. Total valid taxa reflect new taxa added minus taxa moved into synonymy plus taxa newly moved to valid. The classification is as used in the Catalog of Fishes.
Ichthyological collections -- Presented are those specimen collections mentioned in the main Catalog of Fishes database, especially as repositories of type specimens. Besides museum names and abbreviations, this includes WWW sites, cross-referencing of abbreviations, and selection of museums by country, along with type catalogs, historical articles, name changes, transfers, and other items for individual collections. Prepared by Ron Fricke and Bill Eschmeyer.
Ichthyological journals -- There are nearly 2400 individual journals or monograph series in the Catalog of Fishes database. We provide full citations, and other information such as changes in titles, published duration, ISSN numbers, WWW sites, etc. Prepared by Ron Fricke and Bill Eschmeyer.
How to cite the Catalog of Fishes
As previously suggested, if you use the Catalog to check spellings, authorships, dates of publication and related items, and/or as a source of recent publications, please consider mentioning this in your methods section or include a citation in your literature cited as: Eschmeyer, W. N. (ed.) Catalog of Fishes electronic version (dd mmm yyyy). http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp
[If you just refer to references, that should be cited as R. Fricke and W. N. Eschmeyer (eds).]
If you came to this site through FishBase or Worldfish, please note that the Catalog of Fishes is not part of Fishbase (please cite the Catalog of Fishes and not FishBase). The Catalog of Fishes did supply data tables to FishBase since their inception, and the Catalog of Fishes has been the primary source of their taxonomic information. The Catalog of Fishes is not responsible for the accuracy of taxonomic information in FishBase. Also note the site Worldfish.de (Schraml and Mikšik) predates the use of "Worldfish" by FishBase and is not a part of FishBase; Worldfish.de is the site posting new fish taxa as they are published.
Much fish taxonomic information on the internet at such sites as Global Species, GBIF, Encyclopedia of Life, WoRMS, Catalog of Life, ITIS, uBio, Global Names Index, and other sites is out-of-date. Most of the information on fish taxonomy is taken indirectly or directly from the Catalog of Fishes, and some information goes back to 2004. These sites have "repackaged" information, but they rarely added new taxonomic information. Some of their information on status of species, for example, is now inaccurate. Most information on these sites was provided to them by FishBase, but Fishbase, until the last few years, was supplied with and relied on the Catalog of Fishes for their taxonomic information.
Note: The easiest way to reach the current internet version of the Catalog of Fishes is to use Google and enter Catalog of Fishes -- it should be the first choice.
Some other useful sites for fishes are (1) Fishbase [Fishbase team, Manila]; (2) www.stri.org/sftep -- A comprehensive database on Shore Fishes of the Eastern Pacific [Ross Robertson]; (3) shark-references.com -- A database on elasmobranchs, with over 13,000 references, information on taxa, type specimens, etc. [Jürgen Pollerspöck]; (4) FishWisePro.com -- a comprehensive relational database of more than 99,350 scientific species name combinations and over 34,300 well-identified (mostly marine) fish pictures [Dennis Polack].
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Nicolas Bailly (Fishbase) and Dennis Pollack for continuing to find errors, discrepancies, and inconsistencies, to Thomas Litz for work with aquarium literature, and to Michal Miksic who continues to find and forward publications. Thanks for help with this version to Christopher Scharpf. Jon Fong prepared the new version for www presentation.
Persons assisting in 2012: Erik Åhlander, Eric Anderson, William Anderson Jr., Jörg Bohlen, ty6, Gert Boden, Alejandro Lodoño Burbano, Frédéric Busson, Rudolf Caers, Emily Capuli, Dave Catania, Paul Davis, Juan M. Díaz de Astarloa, Fabio Di Dario, Scott Federhen, Carl Ferraris, Sonia Fisch-Muller, Tilman Fischer, Jörg Freyhof, Tom Geerinckx, Jessica Grosso, Renny Hadiaty, Lubomir Hanel, Elaine Heemstra, Hans Ho, Mysi Hoang, Douglas Hoese, Samuel Iglésias, Tomio Iwamoto, Steen Knudsen, Keita Koeda, Philippe Keith, Maurice Kottelat, Bernd Kramer, Krishna Kumar, Helen Larson, Matthew Lockett, Marina Loeb, Liu Jing, James Maclaine, Manoela M. F. Marinho, John McCosker, Catherine Mecklenburg, George Mendes, André Netto-Ferreira, Ng Heok-Hee, Nicola Novarini, Larry Page, Mark Sabaj Pérez, Mats Petersson, Sabine Petri, John E. Randall, Artem Prokofiev, Rob Robins, César Román-Valencia, David G. Smith, Sharleen Smith, Bill Smith-Vaniz, Nicolas Straube, James Van Tassell, Peter Unmack, Laurent Wantiez, Simon Weigmann, Peter Wirtz, Dan Zimberlin. Thanks to others whom we may have missed.
Bill Eschmeyer
California Academy of Sciences
beschmeyer@calacademy.org