Tropical Fish Information - How Your Fish Are Named
In this report on tropical fish information you will see information on why folk keep tropical fish, the background to it and the fish classifying scientific naming convention.
Nowadays there an increasing number involved in keeping tropical fish at home in an aquarium and the ages of these aquarists ranges from the more elderly down to young kids.
Due to tropical fish being more colorful than their cold water compatriots, the aquarist has more to select from and because they are not as big you can accomodate more in your aquarium, and usually you will not have to import the fish from its original habitat due to being bred in captivity just for you.
It is unlikely that the fish in your tank have the same size, color or form of the original fish due to years of ongoing breeding, so for example a checkered warf cichlid will not have come Venezuela where it originated, but you can import wild stock when rearing in captivity is not successful.
Some species might have various common names, used on a daily basis by pet shops and aquarium owners, and may be helpful, but if a spot on identification is needed then they are of no use.
Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish physician, botanist, and zoologist (called the father of new taxonomy and one of the fathers of new ecology) who laid the basis for the conventional system of naming species called binomial nomenclature.
Since 1758 this process has been utilised and divides animals and plants into sectors in such a way that their inter-relationship is established. Taxonomy finds, describes and categorizes organisms into seven major groupings, in this order, Kingdom/Phylum/Division/Class/Order/Family/Genus/Species.
As the name describes, the binomial nomenclature scheme provides a two part ’scientific name’ with the genus and species names together. Biologists like to call the genus and species combination the ’scientific name’ although it could be called the ‘Latin name’.
As Ichthyology (zoological term for studying fish) moves forward it has happened that now and again fish have been put in a different classification but because the new identification name is not used by everyone, you can sometimes end up with one fish having two scientific names.
For example, the Chanda lala and the Ambassis lala might be assumed to be different species, but they are not and you may have more than one genus with lots of species as in the Colisa labiosa and the Colisa fasciata. If a genus for a fish is known but it can not be properly identified then you would describe the fish with its generic name and the word species tagged on to it.
yearly, around 250 newly discovered species are assigned scientific names and at the start of 2010 there were over 31,000 species registered with a fish information database. If you add up all other vertebrates: amphibians, mammals, birds and reptiles, the total is less than the number of fish species around.
Paul Curran provides a care information system for fresh water aquariums. Also receive a FREE E-Course and learn how to set up and maintain a beautiful aquarium, have the healthiest, happiest fish around AND get more tropical fish information.
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