Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes

We are making additions to:

Van der Laan, R., W. N. Eschmeyer & R. Fricke 2014 (11 Nov.), Family-group names of Recent fishes. Zootaxa Monograph 3882 (1), 1-230. DOI 10.11646/zootaxa.3882.1.1

Download the addenda to the family-group list as a PDF.

NEW! Download the addenda to the family-group list of fossil fishes as a PDF (last updated 7 Aug. 2023).

See Family Group Names for future updates by R. van der Laan.

By default, search results will not include item 3 names -- unavailable names that detract from the main list of available names. These are mostly names mentioned in synonymy, names in lists, etc. They are still in the database, so if you want to see them, check the box labeled Include unavailable names before searching.

Fricke, R., Eschmeyer, W. N. & R. van der Laan (eds) 2023. ESCHMEYER'S CATALOG OF FISHES: GENERA, SPECIES, REFERENCES.(http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp). Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2023.

Fricke, R. (ed) 2023. REFERENCES. (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp). Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2023. [Ron Fricke devoted much time to improving references and journals, many of which had not been examined in 15 to 25 years. Please remember that the title of a paper often differs in three places: the title on the paper itself, the contents listed by the journal, and in the PDF provided by the journal. Ron tends to follow the title on the pdf for recent papers and the title on the original for earlier publications. Many of our dates of publication are documented for priority purposes. Some current journals have a target date, but actual publication is often delayed. For nomenclatural date problems, we will help if we can.]

van der Laan, R. & Fricke, R. 2023. FAMILY-GROUP NAMES. (http://www.calacademy.org/scientists/catalog-of-fishes-family-group-names/). Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2023.

van der Laan, R., Fricke, R. & Eschmeyer, W. N. (eds) 2023. ESCHMEYER'S CATALOG OF FISHES: CLASSIFICATION. (http://www.calacademy.org/scientists/catalog-of-fishes-classification/).Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2023.

Fricke, R. & Eschmeyer, W. N. 2023. JOURNALS. (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/journals.asp). Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2023.[Includes all journals appearing in the Catalog, including publication information and ISSN numbers.]

Fricke, R. & Eschmeyer, W. N. 2023. GUIDE TO FISH COLLECTIONS. (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/collections.asp). Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2023. [Arranged by museum abbreviation and by country, includes type catalogs and historical publications and www sites where available.]

Fricke, R., Eschmeyer, W. N. & Fong, J. D. 2023 SPECIES BY FAMILY/SUBFAMILY. (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/SpeciesByFamily.asp).Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2023. [Recalculated with each new version; based on current literature, this provides all available species names, valid species, and species described in the last 10 years by family/subfamily.]

Other participants are Dennis Polack (Data Analyst), Nicolas Bailly (Data Analyst), Richard van der Laan (Freshwater Fishes Specialist), Thomas Litz (Aquarium Species/Literature Specialist), and Dan Zimberlin (Data Analyst). Jon Fong prepares the online versions and does other programming tasks.

Please remember that if you got to Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes from Fishbase, you are NOT in Fishbase. Fishbase is a more comprehensive database for a different audience, but they use Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes information in their authority file.

Some other useful sites for fishes are (1) Fishbase [Fishbase team, Manila]; (2) www.stri.org/sftep -- A comprehensive database on Shorefishes of the Tropical Eastern Pacific (and of the Western Atlantic) [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]; (5) Freshwater Fish List, 23rd edition December 2017 by Richard Van der Laan; (6) ETYFish Project (derivations of Fish Names) by Christopher Scharpf; and (7) BioStor, for Biodiversity Heritage Library references. A very useful site is Worldfish.de [not associated with Fishbase or Worldfish]. Maintained by Michal Mikšik and Erwin Schraml. They post new fish taxa and references as they are published.

A summary paper was published in 2010 from Eschmeyer's 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).

About 384 new species were described in 2014. As always, notifying us of missed original descriptions and errors in the database or providing PDFs of recent papers is most welcome.

Bill Eschmeyer edited type localities and standardized many place names. Our style is 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.

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.

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.

Species of Fishes by Family/Subfamily -- 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. Prepared by Bill Eschmeyer and Jon Fong, with modifications by Richard van der Laan.

Family-Group Names -- Priority applies to Family-group names. It did not in early years. As classifications are refined with use of more subfamilies and tribes, it is required to use the oldest available family-group name for these new taxa.

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 2600 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.

Acknowledgments for Ron Fricke (2023): K. V. Akhilesh, Valter de Azevedo-Santos, John Babaluk, Andrey Balanov, Nicolas Bailly, Rafael Bañón, Esra Bayçelebi, Vinicius Bertaco, Goutham Bharati, José Birindelli, Flavio Bockmann, Sergey Bogorodsky, Arthur Bos, Heleno Brandão, Ralf Britz, Emily Capuli, Alfredo Carvalho, Bruno Chanet, Chen Xiaoyong, Junior Chuctaya, Erdogan Çiçek, Louw Claassens, Jefferson Crispim-Rodrigues, Fernando Dagosta, Mrinal Kumar Das, Gabriel Deprá, Liuyong Ding, Omar Domínguez-Domínguez, Carlos Donascimiento, Alain Dubois, Yury Dyldin, Soheil Eagderi, David Ebert, Hiromitsu Endo, Hamid Esmaeili, Jörg Freyhof, Shingo Fujimoto, Holger Funk, Valeria Gabbanelli, Eduardo García-Mercado, Daniel Golani, Steven Grant, Michael Hammer, Mohammad Eusuf Hasan, Harutaka Hata, Douglass Hoese, Kazuo Hoshino, Dirk Hovestadt, Wen-Chien Huang, Ken Hutchings, Charlotte Huyghe, Isaäc Isbrucker, A. K. Jaiswar, Laith Jawad, Christian Michael Jones, Arash Jouladeh Roudbar, Keny Kanagusuku, Shalu Kannan, Emma Karmovskaya, Yury Kartavtsev, Axel Katz, Jinkoo Kim, Stefan Koerber, Laishram Kosygin, Alexander Kotlyar, Marcelo Kovaçić, Thomas Lachenal, Francisco Langeani, Pierre-Yves Le Bail, Damián Lescano, Flávio Lima, Thomas Litz, Kwang-Ling Liu, Manoela Marinho, Tatjana Marzen, Mizumi Matsunuma, George Mattox, Martim Melo, Michal Mikšik, Shota Mitsui, Anil Mohapatra, Takahiko Mukai, Thierry Mulochau, Laban Musinguzi, Moulitharan Nallathambi, Matthew Neilson, Shin-Lai Ng, Michael Norén, Claudio Oliveira, Adnan Oruç, Lawrence Page, Vladimir Panchenko, Yvan Papa, Kodeeswaran Paramasiwam, Eric Parmentier, Shesdev Patro, Sabine Petri, Frank Pezold, Kyle Piller, Roberto Pillon, Artem Prokofiev, Francisco Provenzano, M. P. Rajeeshkumar, Kumar Rajendran, Jorge Ramirez, Sara Serafim Ratão, Renan Borges dos Reis, Roberto Esser dos Reis, Mohsen Rezaie-Atagholipour, Oldřich Říčan, Ross Robertson, Rob Robins, Mao Sato, Ivan Sazima, Christopher Scharpf, Erwin Schraml, Meaghan Score, Arya Sen, Bungdon Shangningam, Cárlison Silva-Oliveira, Yonela Sithole, David Smith, Igor Souto-Santos, Hiranya Sudasinghe, Sureandiran B., S. Sureshkumar, Donald C. Taphorn B., Christine Thacker, Matthew Thomas, Hau Duc Tran, Raül Triay-Portella, Peter Unmack, Henrique Varella, Sijo Varghese, Ekaterina Vasil'eva, Frans Vermeulen, Benjamin Victor, Balaji Vijayakrishnan, Paulo Vilardo, Matej Vucić, Wei Jiehong, Simon Weigmann, Erika Wilbur, Andrew Williston, Richard Winterbottom, Peter Wirtz, Baran Yoğurtçuoğlu, Cláudio Zawadzki, E Zhang, Mikhail Zhukov.

Acknowledgments for Richard van der Laan (2022-2023): Felipe Abranches, Emmanuel Abwe, Smrutirekha Acharya, Henry Agudelo-Zamora, Erik Åhlander,Mohammad Alavi-Yeganeh, Bader H. Alhajeri, Marcia Silva Anjos, Mariangeles Arce H., Carlos Ardila Rodríguez, Jairo Arroyave, Muthukumarasamy Arunachalam, Sirachai Arunrugstichai, Calder Atta, Nicolas Bailly, Arcady Balushkin, Yusuf Bektas, Ricardo Betancur, Flávio Bockmann, Sergey Bogorodsky, Pedro Bragança, José Carlos Brito, Marcelo Ribeiro de Britto, Marko Ćaleta, Pablo Calviño, Mac Campbell, Tiago de Carvalho Faria, David Černý, Xiao Chen, Gustavo Chiaramonte, Brian Coad, Rupert Collins, Sebastián Cona, Kevin Conway, Neelesh Dahanukar, Fabio di Dario, Arup Das, Vahe Demirjian, Gaël Denys, Eddy Derijst, Leyli Purrafee Dizaj, Omar Domínguez-Domínguez, Laura Donin, Emanuell Duarte-Ribeiro, Alain Dubois, David Ebert, Hiromitsu Endo, André Esguícero, Guillain Estivals, Dario Faustino-Fuster, Antonia Ford, Acacio Freitas, Jörg Freyhof, Ron Fricke, Dan Fromm, Augusto Frota, Kyoji Fujiwara, Babette van Gool, Konrad Górski, Harutaka Hata, Bart Hazes, Elaine Heemstra, Elisabeth Henschel, Miguel Hernández, Hans Ho, Wen-Chien Huang, Jean Huber, Lily Hughes, Samuel Iglésias, Taiki Ito, Praveenraj Jayasimhan, Howard Jelks, Wilbert Kadye, Manda Kambikambi, Chinmay Kar, Axel Katz, Daemin Kim, Seishi Kimura, Steen Knudsen, Paramasivam Kodeeswaran, Keita Koeda, Taiga Kunishima, Paul van der Laan, Francisco Langeani, Oscar M. Lasso-Alcalá, Sébastien Lavoué, Mao-Ying Lee, Eliseo Lescún, Flávio Lima, Thomas Litz, Tobit Liyandja, Thiago Silva Loboda, Edgardo Londoño-Cruz, Nathan Lujan, Silvia Lustosa-Costa, Diego Luzzatto, James Maclaine, Katemo Manda, Mizuki Matsunuma, Madhava Meegaskumbura, Bruno Melo, Michal Mikšík, Michael Mincarone, Guido Miranda, Marcos Mirande, Ryo Misawa, A. V. Mishin, Anil Mohapatra, Daniel Mokodongan, Peter Møller, Nozomu Muto, Robert Myers, Dirk Neumann, Mayara Pereira Neves, Heok Hee Ng, Shing-Lai Ng, Willian M. Ohara, Makoto Okamoto, Claudio Oliveira, Renildo de Oliveira, Larry Page, Murilo Pastana, Edson Pereira, Tiago Pessali, Flávia Petean, Dennis Polack, Jayasimhan Praveenraj, Olga Radchenko, Divya Radhakrishnan, Filipe Rangel-Pereira, Lais Reia, Vinícius Reis, Roberto Reis, Ross Robertson, Cesar Román-Valencia, Uwe Römer, Barry Russell, Mark Sabaj, David de Santana, Vanessa de Santis, Mudjie Santos, Sérgio Santos, Luisa Sarmento-Soares, Mao Sato, Serkan Saygun, Chris Scharpf, Erwin Schraml, Iraj Segherloo, Hiroshi Senou, Emilia Sferco, Bungdon Shangningam, Sergei Shedko, Bakhtiyor Sheraliev, Brian Sidlauskas, Priscilla Caroline Silva, Cárlison Silva-Oliveira, Mahender Singh, Pratima Singh, Yonela Sithole, Dave Smith, Bill Smith-Vaniz, Yan Soares, Gabe Somarriba, Hiranya Sudasinghe, John Sullivan, Milton Tan, Kisekelwa Tchalondawa, Andrea Thomaz, Shinichi Tomiyama, Tom Trnski, Ekaterina Vasil’eva, Massimiliano Virgilio, Olga Voskoboinikova, Nathan Vranken, Emmanuel Vreven, Simon Weigmann, Jeff Williams, Lei Yang, Jouke van der Zee, E Zhang, Renyi Zhang, W. Zhou, Mikhail Zhukov, Dan Zimberlin and Elsbeth Zwart.

Acknowledgments for Bill Eschmeyer & Jon Fong (2022): Martin Byttebier, Fábio Vieira.