The Catalog of Fishes is the authoritative reference for taxonomic fish names, featuring a searchable on-line database.
• Search the catalog
• Species by Family/Subfamily
• Ichthyological Collections
• Ichthyological Journals
Catalog of Fishes - version of 12 July 2010
This version is edited by Eschmeyer. Ronald Fricke will no longer be participating as an editor. Other primary participants are Dennis Polack (Data Analyst) and Thomas Litz (Aquarium Species/Literature Specialist). Jon Fong continues as the programmer and as co-editor of some sections.
Note: The summary paper has just been published 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).
Over 200 new species have been described in 2010. Only about 300 new species were published in 2009, down substantially from over 500 in 2008. This is primarily due to a large decrease in new species of catfishes, coinciding with the end of the "All-Catfishes" species project. Perhaps the financial recession has decreased some publication activity.
As always, notifying us of missed taxa descriptions and errors in the database or providing PDFs of recent papers is most welcome.
Species of Fishes by family/subfamily -- Prepared by Bill Eschmeyer and Jon Fong from the 12 July 2010 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 (12 July 2010). http://research.calacademy.org/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp
Acknowledgments all versions in 2010: Many others have assisted in versions this year (alphabetically): Héctor Alcaraz, Gerry Allen, William D. Anderson, Rafael Araujo, Dahiana Arcila M, Nicolas Bailly and FishBase, Carole Baldwin, Rafael Bañón Díaz, Heiko Blehr, Stan Blum, Gert Boden, Nina Bogutskaya, Dianne Bray, Rudolf Caers, Emily Capuli, Kent Carpenter, Alfredo Carvalho, David Catania, Wai-Yee Chan, Brian Coad, Kevin Conway, Walter Courtenay, Wasila Dahdul, Fabio Di Dario, Robert Eakens, David Ebert, Scott Federhen, Sonia Fisch-Muller, Jon Fong, Matt Ford, Uiblein Franz, Tom Fraser, Jørg Freyhof, Ron Fricke, Tony Gill, Martin Gomon, Johannes Graf, Steve Grant, David Greenfield, Brendan Haley, Karsten Hartel, Elaine Heemstra, Phil Heemstra, Dean Hendrickson, Hans Ho, Mysi Hoang, Doug Hoese, Wouter Holleman, Isaäc Isbrücker, Tomio Iwamoto, Yukio Iwatsuki, Ian Jacobson, Jeff Johnson, Stefan Koerber, Maurice Kottelat, Sven Kullander, Helen Larson, Ken Lazara, Thomas Litz, Paulo Lucinda, Nathan Lujan, Luis Malabarba, Wilfredo Matamoros, Eddie Matheson, Richard Mayden, Richard McBride, James Maclaine, John McCosker, Mark McGrouther, Peter Midford, Michael Mincarone, Hiroyuki Motomura, Bruce Munday, Daksha Naran, Dirk Neumann, H. H. Ng, Jørgen Nielsen, James Orr, Larry Page, Lynne Parenti, Paolo Parenti, John Paxton, Mats Petersson, Sabine Petri, Jiri Plistil, John Pogonoski, Artem Prokofiev, John Randall, Sally Reader, Mike Retzer, Clive Roberts, Ross Robertson, Rob Robins, César Román-Valencia, Arkadiusz Rzepecki, Mark Sabaj Pérez, Ivan Sazima, Christopher Scharpf, Erwin Schraml, David Smith, Shirleen Smith, William Smith-Vaniz, Rainer Sonnenberg, Albert Thomson, Peter Unmack, USNM Division of Fishes Staff, J. A. Vanegas Ríos, Jo Van Egroo, Richard Vari, Ekatarina D. Vasil'eva, Benjamin Victor, William White, Rick Winterbottom.
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 Miksik) 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.
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.
Bill Eschmeyer
California Academy of Sciences
weschmeyer@calacademy.org