tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post977695617199372338..comments2023-12-24T07:02:43.274+08:00Comments on Catalogue of Organisms: Knocked Off the Perch (Taxon of the Week: Percidae)Christopher Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11075565866351612441noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-75316566455127928842009-07-04T14:21:33.945+08:002009-07-04T14:21:33.945+08:00Chris--
Thank you for your indulgent (and helpful)...Chris--<br />Thank you for your indulgent (and helpful) reply! ... Common names for FISH aren't the only mess, of course: ask an Australian, an American and a Brit to identify a ROBIN!Allen Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05098575774774203097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-58461322591508959772009-07-04T08:48:57.000+08:002009-07-04T08:48:57.000+08:00Doug, I hasten to stress that it is not my own pho...Doug, I hasten to stress that it is not my own photo. It is a good one, though, and the site linked has a number of good darter photos, plus a detailed description of how they were taken.<br /><br />I was aware of the Smith & Craig paper, but not of the Imamura & Habe one - thank you! As I said at the previous post, I suspect that Li <i>et al.</i> chose the name Serraniformes to avoid the baggage associated with the names Perciformes and/or Scorpaeniformes. I'm just happy to watch and see how this one pans out, though.Christopher Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11075565866351612441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-90628683515502053932009-07-04T04:22:15.920+08:002009-07-04T04:22:15.920+08:00You might want to take a look at a couple of paper...You might want to take a look at a couple of papers from 2003 in Bulletin of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University and 2007 in Copeia that formally addressed these issue before several of the papers you discuss. These studies also include diagnostic features, which some people prefer, although not really necessary because these are outside the scope of the ICZN.<br /><br />The solution has to be a restricted Perciformes that includes just a few hundred fishes (Percidae, Notothenioidei, and a few other enigmatic forms). <br /><br />Serraniformes is never going to be a reasonable solution for any group that includes Percidae or Serranids (sensu lato or stricto) because it will be forced to include 1000s of scorpaeniform species, which will be a more logical group to name that whole assemblage after when things get worked out.<br /><br />Imamura, H. and Yabe, M. 2003. Demise of the Scorpaeniformes(Actinopterygii: Percomorpha): An Alternative Phylogenetic Hypothesis. Bulletin of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University 53: 107-128.<br /><br />Smith, W.L. and Craig, M.T. 2007. Casting the percomorph net widely: The importance of broad taxonomic sampling in the search for the placement of serranid and percid fishes. Copeia 2007:35-55.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-16474568769028186892009-07-04T01:20:44.392+08:002009-07-04T01:20:44.392+08:00Nice Etheostoma caeruleum photo. A few weeks ago ...Nice <i>Etheostoma caeruleum</i> photo. A few weeks ago my staff and I collected some examples of this species for a live museum display. I posted a decent <a href="http://gtapestry.blogspot.com/2008/06/1001-amphibian-nights.html" rel="nofollow">habitat photo</a> from the same outing a year ago. I'm always surprised at how small a stream can be and yet support a good population.Doug Taronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08537881828742937167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-80845235032294423182009-07-03T21:12:14.563+08:002009-07-03T21:12:14.563+08:00That's interesting - while looking up the deri...That's interesting - while looking up the derivation of "Smegmamorpha", I discover that it doesn't refer to the clade that I thought it did. I thought that it included the Mugilidae (mullets) and Atherinomorpha (killifishes, livebearers, halfbeaks, flying fish, etc.), but it turns out that it was originally named to cover a larger group, and it was named after its contents - "Smegma" stands for "Synbranchoidei-Mastacembeloidei-Elassomatidae-Gasterosteiformes-Mugilidae-Atherinomorpha". Mugilidae and Atherinomorpha are probably closely related, but this broader Smegmamorpha is probably polyphyletic. Pity.<br /><br />Hopefully, the teleosts will be properly divided into monophyletic taxa over time. It's already pretty much happened for non-acanthomorphs (we're past the days when almost every marine non-acanthomorph teleost was included in the Clupeiformes, thank goodness). Unfortunately, relationships within the acanthomorphs (particularly the percomorphs) are still a mess of polytomies, and there's a lot of work yet to do sorting them out.Christopher Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11075565866351612441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-62990847001915608072009-07-03T20:23:31.071+08:002009-07-03T20:23:31.071+08:00'Smegmomorpha'!? Was this clade named by a...'Smegmomorpha'!? Was this clade named by a red dwarf fan?Adam Yateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03046084686097124394noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-77059211984217401592009-07-03T19:45:27.307+08:002009-07-03T19:45:27.307+08:00Thanks for this post. Undergrad turned me off to f...Thanks for this post. Undergrad turned me off to fish mostly (even though my degree is in fisheries biology) but I do have my pet groups, including the darters. Since your former post on the Cypriniformes, I've come to realize just how screwed teleost taxonomy has become, what will all these junk taxa floating around in paraphyletic assemblages. Does this mean all these groups are going to be split off, like the disintigration of the formerly Mycetophilidae in Diptera (yet another group that needs major taxonomic work)?<br /><br />~KaiAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-75133423631477997292009-07-03T16:54:50.335+08:002009-07-03T16:54:50.335+08:00Characiformes, the other major order of freshwater...<i>Characiformes, the other major order of freshwater fish I referred to, includes the tetras and related fish. Not very significant in North America (if they're even found in that area)</i><br /><br />They are found there - barely. The Mexican tetra <i>Astyanax mexicanus</i> - the species that also has a blind cave form - reaches as far north as southern Texas. And I think that a few other tetra species are found in northern Mexico (i.e., in 'North America', biogeographically speaking). But yeah, tetras are not particularly significant components of the Nearctic fish fauna.Dartiannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-42062296806086839742009-07-03T16:23:01.104+08:002009-07-03T16:23:01.104+08:00I certainly have no problem with the question, tho...I certainly have no problem with the question, though it brings up an interesting point about communication. Because I personally deal with organisms using technical names more often than vernacular names, I'm often more familiar with the former than the latter. My favorite story to illustrate that point involves a case where I asked a friend to identify a bird we were looking at out in the field, and he replied that it was a spinifex-bird. I'd never heard of such a thing. It wasn't until after I arrived home and looked it up that I discovered that a "spinifex-bird" was <i>Eremiornis</i>. Now if my friend had just said <i>Eremiornis</i> in the first place... The flipside of this, of course, is that I can forget that other people have the opposite bias. It's my fault if they don't understand me as a result, not theirs.<br /><br />That said, I have some very good reasons for avoiding vernacular names when it comes to fish - for some reason, fish names are just <i>awful</i> (I've complained about this <a href="http://catalogue-of-organisms.blogspot.com/2007/11/taxon-of-week-give-us-kiss.html" rel="nofollow">before</a>). The same names have been re-used all over the world for different fish. So when you ask about "bass" and "sunfish", it's good that you specified North American, because the fish that would come to mind for you when you say those names would <i>not</i> be the fish that come to mind for a New Zealander such as myself.<br /><br />Anyway, enough ranting. "Percomorpha" is a clade including the greater part of "Acanthomorpha", spine-finned fishes (and almost all the freshwater acanthomorphs). So as you mention, these are the fish that have hard spines rather than soft rays in the front of the dorsal fin. North American freshwater "bass" and "sunfish" belong to a family called Centrarchidae, and yes, they're also percomorphs.<br /><br />You're right about the contents of Cypriniformes and Siluriformes. Characiformes, the other major order of freshwater fish I referred to, includes the tetras and related fish. Not very significant in North America (if they're even found in that area), but pretty important in South America and Africa. These three orders belong to a clade called Otophysi whose members have a bony apparatus connecting the swim bladder to the inner ear. Salmoniformes (salmon and trout) and Esociformes (pike) are closer to Percomorpha than are Otophysi, but they're separate from either. You can use the tree at <a href="http://tolweb.org/Teleostei/15054" rel="nofollow">ToLWeb</a> as a basic reference, if you like.Christopher Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11075565866351612441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-44238946384177745962009-07-03T15:11:28.223+08:002009-07-03T15:11:28.223+08:00I have a problem with this post: not that it's...I have a problem with this post: not that it's not clear in itself-- to the degree I can understand it, it's very clear-- but that I don't know enough ichthyotaxonomy to have an intuitive feel for what you are describing. A problem I have with other things I have read about teleost clssification/phylogeny: I see a bunch of technical names, and have no idea which taxa include fish I know by appearance and "common" name. Are you willing to indulge me by putting a few of my "acquaintances" in the proper slots?<br />You say the Perco-whatsises share freshwater dominance with a number of other groups. Cypriniforms-- that includes carp, minnows, goldfish? Siluriforms I know: catfish. ... Now for some other stereotypical (Nearctic) freshwater fish. Trout (Salmoniformes) and Pike (Esoci...) are (is this right?) much more basal teleosts than any of the groups you mention? And what are the critters North American English-speakers call Bass and Sunfish? The mental image the word "Perch" calls up for me has strong fin-rays in the dorsal (so: zig-zag profile), so I'm going to guess that Sunfish and Bass are Perciwhatsises: is this right?<br /> (Sorry to be so ignorant: ignore me if you are annoyed by such questions!)Allen Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05098575774774203097noreply@blogger.com