Ichthyology is the branch of
zoology
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...
devoted to the study of
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
, including bony fish (
Osteichthyes
Osteichthyes (), popularly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse superclass of fish that have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondrichthyes, which have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage ...
), cartilaginous fish (
Chondrichthyes
Chondrichthyes (; ) is a class that contains the cartilaginous fishes that have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage. They can be contrasted with the Osteichthyes or ''bony fishes'', which have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. ...
), and jawless fish (
Agnatha
Agnatha (, Ancient Greek 'without jaws') is an infraphylum of jawless fish in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, consisting of both present (cyclostomes) and extinct ( conodonts and ostracoderms) species. Among recent animals, cyclosto ...
). According to
FishBase
FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web. , 33,400 species of fish had been described as of October 2016, with approximately 250 new species described each year.
Etymology
The word is derived from the Greek words
ἰχθύς
The ichthys or ichthus (), from the Greek (, 1st cent. AD Koine Greek pronunciation: , "fish") is (in its modern rendition) a symbol consisting of two intersecting arcs, the ends of the right side extending beyond the meeting point so as to res ...
, ''ikhthus'', meaning "fish"; and
λογία, ''logia'', meaning "to study".
History
The study of fish dates from the
Upper Paleolithic Revolution
Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current ''Homo sapiens'' from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates. Most scholars agree that modern human behavior can be characterized b ...
(with the advent of "high culture"). The science of ichthyology was developed in several interconnecting epochs, each with various significant advancements.
The study of fish receives its origins from humans' desire to feed, clothe, and equip themselves with useful implements. According to
Michael Barton, a prominent ichthyologist and professor at
Centre College
Centre College is a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky. It is an undergraduate college with an enrollment of approximately 1,400 students. Centre was officially chartered by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1819. The college is ...
, "the earliest ichthyologists were ''
hunters and gatherers
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
'' who had learned how to obtain the most useful fish, where to obtain them in abundance, and at what times they might be the most available". Early cultures manifested these insights in abstract and identifiable artistic expressions.
1500 BC–40 AD
Informal, scientific descriptions of fish are represented within the
Judeo-Christian
The term Judeo-Christian is used to group Christianity and Judaism together, either in reference to Christianity's derivation from Judaism, Christianity's borrowing of Jewish Scripture to constitute the "Old Testament" of the Christian Bible, or ...
tradition. The Old Testament laws of
kashrut
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
forbade the consumption of fish without scales or appendages.
Theologians
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...
and ichthyologists believe that the apostle
Peter
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
and his contemporaries harvested the fish that are today sold in modern industry along the
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
, presently known as
Lake Kinneret
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
. These fish include
cyprinid
Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest verte ...
s of the
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...
''
Barbus
''Barbus'' is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. The type species of ''Barbus'' is the common barbel, first described as ''Cyprinus barbus'' and now named ''Barbus barbus''. ''Barbus'' is the namesake genus of the subfamily B ...
'' and ''
Mirogrex'',
cichlid
Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Cichliformes. Cichlids were traditionally classed in a suborder, the Labroidei, along with the wrasses ( Labridae), in the order Perciformes, but molecular studies have contradicted this ...
s of the genus ''
Sarotherodon
''Sarotherodon'' is a genus of oreochromine cichlids that are native to the northern half of Africa (south as far as the Congo River basin), with a single species, ''S. galilaeus'', also ranging into the Levant. A couple of species from this gen ...
'', and ''
Mugil cephalus
The flathead grey mullet (''Mugil cephalus'') is an important food fish species in the mullet family Mugilidae. It is found in coastal tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. Its length is typically . It is known with numerous English names, ...
'' of the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
Mugilidae
The mullets or grey mullets are a family (Mugilidae) of ray-finned fish found worldwide in coastal temperate and tropical waters, and some species in fresh water. Mullets have served as an important source of food in Mediterranean Europe since R ...
.
335 BC–80 AD
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
incorporated ichthyology into formal scientific study. Between 333 and 322 BC, he provided the earliest
taxonomic
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
classification of fish, accurately describing 117 species of
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
fish.
Furthermore, Aristotle documented
anatomical
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...
and behavioral differences between
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
and
marine mammal
Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reli ...
s. After his death, some of his pupils continued his ichthyological research.
Theophrastus
Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routledge ...
, for example, composed a
treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions."Treat ...
on amphibious fish. The Romans, although less devoted to science, wrote extensively about fish.
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
, a notable Roman
naturalist, compiled the ichthyological works of indigenous
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
s, including verifiable and ambiguous peculiarities such as the
sawfish
Sawfish, also known as carpenter sharks, are a family of rays characterized by a long, narrow, flattened rostrum, or nose extension, lined with sharp transverse teeth, arranged in a way that resembles a saw. They are among the largest fish wi ...
and
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are sometimes asso ...
, respectively. Pliny's documentation was the last significant contribution to ichthyology until the
European Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
.
European Renaissance
The writings of three 16th-century scholars,
Hippolito Salviani
Hippolito Salviani (1514–1572) was an Italian physician, scholar and naturalist, noted for his Renaissance book ''Aquatilium animalium historiae'', depicting about hundred Mediterranean fish species, some from Illyria, and a few mollusks. He ...
,
Pierre Belon
Pierre Belon (1517–1564) was a French traveller, naturalist, writer and diplomat. Like many others of the Renaissance period, he studied and wrote on a range of topics including ichthyology, ornithology, botany, comparative anatomy, architectur ...
, and
Guillaume Rondelet
Guillaume Rondelet (27 September 150730 July 1566), also known as Rondeletus/Rondeletius, was Regius professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier in southern France and Chancellor of the University between 1556 and his death in 1566. He ...
, signify the conception of modern ichthyology. The investigations of these individuals were based upon actual research in comparison to ancient recitations. This property popularized and emphasized these discoveries. Despite their prominence, Rondelet's ''De Piscibus Marinis'' is regarded as the most influential, identifying 244 species of fish.
16th–17th century
The incremental alterations in navigation and shipbuilding throughout the Renaissance marked the commencement of a new epoch in ichthyology. The Renaissance culminated with the era of exploration and colonization, and upon the cosmopolitan interest in navigation came the specialization in naturalism.
Georg Marcgrave
Georg Marcgrave (originally german: Georg Marggraf, also spelled ''"Marcgraf" " Markgraf"'') (1610 – 1644) was a German naturalist and astronomer, whose posthumously published ''Historia Naturalis Brasiliae'' was a major contribution to early mo ...
of
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
composed the ''Naturalis Brasilae'' in 1648. This document contained a description of 100 species of fish indigenous to the
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
ian coastline. In 1686,
John Ray
John Ray FRS (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was a Christian English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after ...
and
Francis Willughby
Francis Willughby (sometimes spelt Willoughby, la, Franciscus Willughbeius) FRS (22 November 1635 – 3 July 1672) was an English ornithologist and ichthyologist, and an early student of linguistics and games.
He was born and raised at M ...
collaboratively published ''
Historia Piscium'', a scientific manuscript containing 420 species of fish, 178 of these newly discovered. The fish contained within this informative literature were arranged in a provisional system of classification.
![Deckblatt zu einem der Hauptwerke von Peter Artedi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Deckblatt_zu_einem_der_Hauptwerke_von_Peter_Artedi.jpg)
The classification used within the ''Historia Piscium'' was further developed by
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
, the "father of modern taxonomy". His
taxonomic
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
approach became the systematic approach to the study of organisms, including fish. Linnaeus was a professor at the
University of Uppsala
Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation.
The university rose to significance during ...
and an eminent
botanist
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
; however, one of his colleagues,
Peter Artedi
Peter Artedi or Petrus Arctaedius (27 February 170528 September 1735) was a Swedish naturalist who is known as the "father of ichthyology".
Artedi was born in Anundsjö in the province of Ångermanland. Intending to become a clergyman, he went ...
, earned the title "father of ichthyology" through his indispensable advancements. Artedi contributed to Linnaeus's refinement of the principles of taxonomy. Furthermore, he recognized five additional
orders
Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to:
* Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood
* Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...
of fish: Malacopterygii, Acanthopterygii, Branchiostegi, Chondropterygii, and
Plagiuri Plagiuri is an early (now disused) biological subclassification of fish (for example in Peter Artedi's ''Ichthyologia'', and in early editions of Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae''). The term was invented by Artedi,Artedi, P. (1738)''Ichthyologia: Phyl ...
. Artedi developed standard methods for making counts and measurements of anatomical features that are modernly exploited. Another associate of Linnaeus,
Albertus Seba
Albertus or Albert Seba (May 12, 1665, Etzel near Friedeburg – May 2, 1736, Amsterdam) was a Dutch pharmacist, zoologist, and collector. Seba accumulated one of the largest cabinets of curiosities in the Netherlands during his time. He sold ...
, was a prosperous
pharmacist
A pharmacist, also known as a chemist (Commonwealth English) or a druggist (North American and, archaically, Commonwealth English), is a healthcare professional who prepares, controls and distributes medicines and provides advice and instructi ...
from
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. Seba assembled a cabinet, or collection, of fish. He invited Artedi to use this assortment of fish; unfortunately, in 1735, Artedi fell into an Amsterdam canal and drowned at the age of 30.
Linnaeus posthumously published Artedi's manuscripts as ''Ichthyologia, sive Opera Omnia de Piscibus'' (1738). His refinement of taxonomy culminated in the development of the
binomial nomenclature
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
, which is in use by contemporary ichthyologists. Furthermore, he revised the orders introduced by Artedi, placing significance on
pelvic fin
Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral surface of fish. The paired pelvic fins are homologous to the hindlimbs of tetrapods.
Structure and function Structure
In actinopterygians, the pelvic fin consists of two en ...
s. Fish lacking this appendage were placed within the order Apodes; fish having abdominal, thoracic, or jugular pelvic fins were termed Abdominales, Thoracici, and Jugulares, respectively. However, these alterations were not grounded within evolutionary theory. Therefore, over a century was needed for
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
to provide the intellectual foundation needed to perceive that the degree of similarity in taxonomic features was a consequence of
phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...
relationships.
Modern era
Close to the dawn of the 19th century,
Marcus Elieser Bloch
Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German physician and naturalist who is best known for his contribution to ichthyology through his multi-volume catalog of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. Brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish ...
of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and
Georges Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...
of
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
made attempts to consolidate the knowledge of ichthyology. Cuvier summarized all of the available information in his monumental ''
Histoire Naturelle des Poissons''. This manuscript was published between 1828 and 1849 in a 22-volume series. This document describes 4,514 species of fish, 2,311 of these new to science. It remains one of the most ambitious treatises of the modern world. Scientific exploration of the Americas advanced knowledge of the remarkable
diversity of fish
Fish are very diverse animals and can be categorised in many ways. This article is an overview of some of ways in which fish are categorised. Although most fish species have probably been discovered and described, about 250 new ones are still di ...
.
Charles Alexandre Lesueur
Charles Alexandre Lesueur (1 January 1778 in Le Havre – 12 December 1846 in Le Havre) was a French Natural history, naturalist, artist, and explorer. He was a prolific natural-history collector, gathering many type specimens in Australia, ...
was a student of Cuvier. He made a cabinet of fish dwelling within the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
and
Saint Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...
regions.
Adventurous individuals such as
John James Audubon
John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...
and
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; October 22, 1783September 18, 1840) was a French 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ultimat ...
figure in the faunal documentation of North America. They often traveled with one another. Rafinesque wrote ''Ichthyologic Ohiensis'' in 1820. In addition,
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...
of
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
established his reputation through the study of freshwater fish and the first comprehensive treatment of palaeoichthyology, ''Poisson Fossil's''. In the 1840s, Agassiz moved to the United States, where he taught at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
until his death in 1873.
Albert Günther
Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther FRS, also Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther (3 October 1830 – 1 February 1914), was a German-born British zoologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. Günther is ranked the second-most productive re ...
published his ''Catalogue of the Fish of the British Museum'' between 1859 and 1870, describing over 6,800 species and mentioning another 1,700. Generally considered one of the most influential ichthyologists,
David Starr Jordan
David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...
wrote 650 articles and books on the subject and served as president of
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universit ...
and
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
Modern publications
Organizations
Notable ichthyologists
Members of this list meet one or more of the following criteria: 1) Author of 50 or more fish
taxon
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...
names, 2) Author of major reference work in ichthyology, 3) Founder of major journal or museum, 4) Person most notable for other reasons who has also worked in ichthyology.
*
Alexander Emanuel Agassiz
Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (December 17, 1835March 27, 1910), son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, was an American scientist and engineer.
Biography
Agassiz was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland and immigrated t ...
*
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...
* HIM
Emperor Akihito
is a member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th emperor of Japan from 7 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. He presided over the Heisei era, ''Heisei'' being an expression of achieving peace worldwide.
Bo ...
of
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
*
Gerald R. Allen
Gerald Robert "Gerry" Allen (born March 26, 1942 in Los Angeles, California) is an American-born Australian ichthyologist. His career began in 1963, when he spent a semester at the University of Hawaii, where he also received a PhD in marine zo ...
*
Peter Artedi
Peter Artedi or Petrus Arctaedius (27 February 170528 September 1735) was a Swedish naturalist who is known as the "father of ichthyology".
Artedi was born in Anundsjö in the province of Ångermanland. Intending to become a clergyman, he went ...
*
Herbert R. Axelrod
Herbert Richard Axelrod (June 7, 1927 – May 15, 2017) was an American tropical fish expert, a publisher of pet books, and an entrepreneur. In 2005 he was sentenced in U.S. court to 18 months in prison for tax fraud.
Early life
Axelrod was born ...
*
William O. Ayres,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
*
Spencer Fullerton Baird
Spencer Fullerton Baird (; February 3, 1823 – August 19, 1887) was an American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, Herpetology, herpetologist, and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution. He ...
*
Tarleton Hoffman Bean
Tarleton Hoffman Bean (October 8, 1846 – December 28, 1916) was an American ichthyologist.
Biography and education
Tarleton Hoffman Bean was born to George Bean and Mary Smith Bean in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania, on October 8, 1846. He attended ...
*
Lev Berg
Lev Semyonovich Berg, also known as Leo S. Berg (russian: Лев Семёнович Берг; 14 March 1876 – 24 December 1950) was a leading Russian geographer, biologist and ichthyologist who served as President of the Soviet Geographical So ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
*
Henry Bryant Bigelow
Henry Bryant Bigelow (October 3, 1879 – December 11, 1967) was an American oceanographer and marine biologist.
He is the grandson of Henry Bryant who was an American physician and naturalist.
After graduating from Harvard in 1901, he beg ...
*
Pieter Bleeker
Pieter Bleeker (10 July 1819 – 24 January 1878) was a Dutch medical doctor, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. He was famous for the ''Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales Néêrlandaises'', his monumental work on the fishes of East Asia ...
,
East Indies
The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...
*
Marcus Elieser Bloch
Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German physician and naturalist who is best known for his contribution to ichthyology through his multi-volume catalog of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. Brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish ...
*
George Albert Boulenger
George Albert Boulenger (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botani ...
*
Jean Cadenat Jean Cadenat (born Marmande, Lot-et-Garonne 16 April 1908, died Marmande 28 June 1992) was a French ichthyologist.
In 1930, he joined the Agricultural Zoology station at La Grand Ferrade as an assistant preparator and the following year he comple ...
*
Pierre Carbonnier
*
Eugenie Clark
Eugenie Clark (May 4, 1922 – February 25, 2015), popularly known as The Shark Lady, was an American ichthyologist known for both her research on shark behavior and her study of fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. Clark was a pioneer in the fie ...
*
Leonard Compagno Leonard Joseph Victor Compagno is an international authority on shark taxonomy and the author of many scientific papers and books on the subject, best known of which is his 1984 catalogue of shark species produced for the Food and Agriculture Organi ...
*
Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested ...
*
Georges Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...
*
Francis Day
Francis Talbot Day (2 March 1829 – 10 July 1889) was an army surgeon and naturalist in the Madras Presidency who later became the Inspector-General of Fisheries in India and Burma. A pioneer ichthyologist, he described more than three hund ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
*
Francis Buchanan-Hamilton
Francis Buchanan (15 February 1762 – 15 June 1829), later known as Francis Hamilton but often referred to as Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, was a Scottish physician who made significant contributions as a geographer, zoologist, and botanist whil ...
,
Scottish
*
Carl H. Eigenmann
*
Rosa Smith Eigenmann
Rosa Smith Eigenmann (October 7, 1858 – January 12, 1947) was an American ichthyologist (the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish), as well as a writer, editor, former curator at the California Academy of Sciences, and the first libra ...
*
William N. Eschmeyer
*
Barton Warren Evermann
Barton Warren Evermann (October 24, 1853 – September 27, 1932) was an American ichthyologist.
Early life and education
Evermann was born in Monroe County, Iowa in 1853. His family moved to Indiana while he was still a child and it was ...
*
Henry Weed Fowler
Henry Weed Fowler (March 23, 1878 – June 21, 1965) was an American zoologist born in Holmesburg, Pennsylvania.
He studied at Stanford University under David Starr Jordan. He joined the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and worked as ...
*
Joseph Paul Gaimard
Joseph Paul Gaimard (31 January 1793 – 10 December 1858) was a French naval surgeon and naturalist.
Biography
Gaimard was born at Saint-Zacharie on January 31, 1793. He studied medicine at the naval medical school in Toulon, subsequent ...
*
Samuel Garman
Samuel Walton Garman (June 5, 1843 – September 30, 1927), or "Garmann" as he sometimes styled himself, was a naturalist/zoologist from Pennsylvania. He became noted as an ichthyologist and herpetologist.
Biography
Garman was born in Indian ...
*
Charles Henry Gilbert
Charles Henry Gilbert (December 5, 1859 in Rockford, Illinois – April 20, 1928 in Palo Alto, California) was a pioneer ichthyologist and Fisheries science, fishery biologist of particular significance to natural history of the western Unit ...
*
Theodore Nicholas Gill
Theodore Nicholas Gill (March 21, 1837 – September 25, 1914) was an American ichthyologist, mammalogist, malacologist and librarian.
Career
Born and educated in New York City under private tutors, Gill early showed interest in natural history ...
*
Charles Frédéric Girard
Charles Frédéric Girard (8 March 1822 – 29 January 1895) was a French biologist specializing in ichthyology and herpetology.
Born in Mulhouse, France, he studied at the College of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, as a student of Louis Agassiz. In ...
*
George Brown Goode
George Brown Goode (February 13, 1851 – September 6, 1896), was an American ichthyologist and museum administrator. He graduated from Wesleyan University and studied at Harvard University.
Early life and family
George Brown Goode was born Febru ...
*
Albert Günther
Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther FRS, also Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther (3 October 1830 – 1 February 1914), was a German-born British zoologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. Günther is ranked the second-most productive re ...
*
Albert William Herre
Albert William Christian Theodore Herre (September 16, 1868 – January 16, 1962) was an American ichthyologist and lichenologist. Herre was born in 1868 in Toledo, Ohio. He was an alumnus of Stanford University, where he received a Bachelor of S ...
*
Carl L. Hubbs
*
David Starr Jordan
David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...
*
Maurice Kottelat
Maurice Kottelat (born 16 July 1957 in Delémont, Switzerland[Co ...](_blank)
,
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
*Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
*
Bernard Germain de Lacépède
Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède or La Cépède (; 26 December 17566 October 1825) was a French naturalist and an active freemason. He is known for his contribution to the Comte de Buffon's great work, the ...
*
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
*
Seth Eugene Meek
Seth Eugene Meek (April 1, 1859, Hicksville, Ohio – July 6, 1914, Chicago) was an American ichthyologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He was the first compiler of a book on Mexican freshwater fishes. Together with his assi ...
*
George S. Myers
*
Joseph S. Nelson, ''
Fishes of the World
''Fishes of the World'' by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011) is a standard reference for fish systematics. Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of the diversity and classification of the ...
''
*
John Treadwell Nichols
John Treadwell Nichols (June 11, 1883 – November 10, 1958) was an American ichthyologist and ornithologist.
Life and career
Nichols was born in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Mary Blake (Slocum) and John White Treadwell Nic ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, founder of ''Copeia''
*
John Roxborough Norman
John Roxborough Norman (1898, Wandsworth, London – 26 May 1944, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire) was an English ichthyologist.
He started as a clerk in a bank. His lifetime affliction with rheumatic fever began during his military service during the ...
*
Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (22 September 1741 – 8 September 1811) was a Prussian zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia between 1767 and 1810.
Life and work
Peter Simon Pallas was born in Berlin, the son ...
*
Wilhelm Peters
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 in Koldenbüttel – 20 April 1883) was a German natural history, naturalist and explorer.
He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Natural ...
*
Felipe Poey
Felipe Poey (May 26, 1799 – January 28, 1891) was a Cuban zoologist.
Biography
Poey was born in Havana, the son of French and Spanish parents. He spent several years (1804 to 1807) of his life in Pau then studied law in Madrid. He became a ...
*
Jean René Constant Quoy
Jean René Constant Quoy (10 November 1790 in Maillé, Vendée, Maillé – 4 July 1869 in Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, Rochefort) was a French naval surgeon, zoologist and anatomist.
In 1806, he began his medical studies at the school of naval ...
*
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; October 22, 1783September 18, 1840) was a French 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ultimat ...
*
John Ernest Randall
John Ernest "Jack" Randall (May 22, 1924 – April 26, 2020) was an American ichthyologist and a leading authority on coral reef fishes. Randall described over 800 species and authored 11 books and over 900 scientific papers and popular articles. ...
*
Charles Tate Regan
Charles Tate Regan FRS (1 February 1878 – 12 January 1943) was a British ichthyologist, working mainly around the beginning of the 20th century. He did extensive work on fish classification schemes.
Born in Sherborne, Dorset, he was educat ...
*
John Richardson
*
Eduard Rüppell
Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon Rüppell (20 November 1794 – 10 December 1884) was a German Natural history, naturalist and List of explorers, explorer. Rüppell is occasionally transliterated to "Rueppell" for the English alphabet, due to german ort ...
*
Johann Gottlob Schneider
Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider (18 January 1750 – 12 January 1822) was a German Empire, German classicist and natural history, naturalist.
Biography
Schneider was born at Collm in Saxony. In 1774, on the recommendation of Christian Gottlob ...
*
H.M. Smith
*
J.L.B. Smith
*
Edwin Chapin Starks Edwin Chapin Starks (born in Baraboo, Wisconsin on January 25, 1867; died December 29, 1932) was an ichthyologist most associated with Stanford University. He was known as an authority on the osteology of fish. He also did studies of fish of the Pu ...
*
Franz Steindachner
Franz Steindachner (11 November 1834 in Vienna – 10 December 1919 in Vienna) was an Austrian Zoology, zoologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. He published over 200 papers on fishes and over 50 papers on reptiles and amphibians. Steindachne ...
*
Royal D. Suttkus
*
Shigeho Tanaka
was a Japanese ichthyologist and professor of zoology at the Imperial University of Tokyo. He published numerous works on fishes and sharks and co-authored a book on Japanese fish with famous American scientist David Starr Jordan.
Publications
J ...
*
Ethelwynn Trewavas
Ethelwynn Trewavas (5 November 1900 – 16 August 1993) was an ichthyologist at the British Museum of Natural History. She was known for her work on the families Cichlidae and Sciaenidae. She worked with Charles Tate Regan, another ichthyo ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
*
Achille Valenciennes
Achille Valenciennes (9 August 1794 – 13 April 1865) was a French zoologist.
Valenciennes was born in Paris, and studied under Georges Cuvier. His study of parasitic worms in humans made an important contribution to the study of parasitology. ...
*
Johann Julius Walbaum
Johann Julius Walbaum (30 June 1724 – 21 August 1799) was a German physician, naturalist and fauna taxonomist.
Works
As an ichthyologist, he was the first to describe many previously unknown fish species from remote parts of the globe, such ...
*
Gilbert Percy Whitley
Gilbert Percy Whitley (9 June 1903 – 18 July 1975) was a British-born Australian ichthyologist and malacologist who was Curator of Fishes at the Australian Museum in Sydney for about 40 years. He was born at Swaythling, Southampton, England, an ...
*
Francis Willughby
Francis Willughby (sometimes spelt Willoughby, la, Franciscus Willughbeius) FRS (22 November 1635 – 3 July 1672) was an English ornithologist and ichthyologist, and an early student of linguistics and games.
He was born and raised at M ...
*
Stan Wood
Stanley Wood (23 July 1905 – 17 February 1967) was an English footballer who played as an outside left. During his professional career he represented West Bromwich Albion and Halifax Town.
Career
Wood was born in Winsford, Cheshire and att ...
Paleoichthyologists
*
Hans C. Bjerring
Hans Christian Bjerring (born May 30, 1931) is a Danish-Swedish vertebrate paleontologist and comparative anatomist. He has spent his career at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, Sweden, as curator at the Department of Palaeozo ...
*
Erik Jarvik
Anders Erik Vilhelm Jarvik (30 November 1907 – 11 January 1998) was a Swedish paleontologist who worked extensively on the sarcopterygian (or lobe-finned) fish ''Eusthenopteron''. In a career that spanned some 60 years, Jarvik produced some ...
*
Erik Stensiö Prof Erik Helge Osvald Stensiö HFRSE (2 October 1891 – 11 January 1984) was a Swedish paleozoologist. He later took his new surname from his place of origin and is occasionally referred to with both names (as Erik Andersson Stensiö, Erik ...
See also
*
Ichthyology terms
This glossary of ichthyology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in ichthyology, the study of fishes.
A
B
C
...
*
Ichthyology and GIS
*
Meristics Meristics is an area of ichthyology and herpetology which relates to counting quantitative features of fish and reptiles, such as the number of fins or scales. A meristic (countable trait) can be used to describe a particular species of fish, or us ...
References
Additional references
* Bond, Carl E (1996) ''Biology of Fish''. Saunders. .
*
Nelson, Joseph S (2006) ''Fish of the World.'' Wiley. .
*
Michael Barton (2007) ''Bond's Biology of Fish'', Third Edition. Julet. .
*
Pauly D
Paul Michael DelVecchio Jr. (born July 5, 1980), known as Pauly D and DJ Pauly D, is an American television personality and DJ. He is best known for being a cast member of MTV's reality show '' Jersey Shore''.
In 2011, he made a three-album d ...
,
Froese R, Palomares ML and Stergiou KI (2014
''Fish on line, Version 3''A guide to learning and teaching ichthyology using the
FishBase Information System.
External links
Brian Coad's Dictionary of IchthyologyIchthyology Web Resources
{{Authority control
Subfields of zoology