Have you ever taken the trouble to find out what the scientific names of your fishes actually mean? They can often tell you something of interest about your fish.

By way of introduction, every living organism, be it plant or animal, has only one, internationally recognized scientific name. Whereas an organism may have several common names, its scientific name belongs to that particular organism, and to no other animal or plant, and is therefore a unique identifying label. Since we are talking fish, lets use a common fish. For example, a Pearl Gourami, a Lace Gourami and a Mosaic Gourami are all the same fish, which leads to possible confusion. Which fish is it? Well in scientific terms it is Trichogaster leeri.

Scientific names are usually derived from Latin and Greek roots. Generally they describe the organism in some way and in addition, often use "Latinized" names of the people after whom the fish was named or the place it was found. A scientific name generally consists of two words, the first being the "generic" name, which is always commenced with a capital letter, and the second being the "specific" name, which is always commenced with a small letter. In our example above, the fish belongs to the genus "Trichogaster" and is species "leeri".

Although scientific names consist only of genus and species, fishes also belong to a progressively broader grouping, that is, Family within Order within Class (Pisces or Fishes) within Phylum (Chordata or backboned animals) within Kingdom (Animals). In turn, some of these groupings are also sub-divided, but since we do not want to become too technical here, we will not discuss these. At the other end of the scale (no pun intended), within a species, there may be sub-species, and if a particular fish is considered to be a sub-species, a third word is added to its scientific name to indicate this. Many times subspecies are elevated to their own species after more study is done on them.

Now that you have an understanding of the origins and structure of scientific names, let's have a look at a few of them and at what they actually mean in English. Many scientific names describe certain identifying characteristics of the fish, although others, generally those which incorporate names of people or places, are not so descriptive. Following are a few scientific names of fishes you have probably come across and their meanings. See if you can work out how they relate to the fish they describe.

Angelfish - Pterophyllum scalare - (Ptero = fin, phyllum = leaf, scalare = ladder)
Bala or Silver Shark - Balantiocheilus melanopterus - (Balantio = bag, cheilus = lip, melano = black, pterus = fin)
Bristlenose Catfish - Xenocara dolichopterus - (Xeno = stranger, cara = head, dolicho = long, pterus = fin)
Common Hatchetfish - Gasteropelecus sternicla - (Gastero = stomach, pelecus = hatchet, sternicla = breast)
Crimson-spotted Rainbowfish - Melanotaenia splendida fluviatilis - (Melano = black, taenia = band, splendida = glittering, fluviatilis = belonging to a river) - an example of a sub-species
Discus - Symphysodon aequifasciata - (Symphys = to glue together, odon = tooth, aequi = equal, fasciata = banded)
Flag Cichlid - Aequidens curviceps - (Aequi = equal, dens = teeth, curvi = curved, ceps = head)
Glowlight Tetra - Hemigrammus erythrozonus - (Hemi = half, grammus = mark, erythro = red, zonus = banded)
Guppy - Poecilia reticulata - (Poecilia = many-coloured, reticulata = made like a net)
Hoplo Catfish - Hoplosternum thoracatum - (Hoplo = tool, sternum = chest, thoracatum = breast-plate)
Kribensis - Pelvicachromis pulcher - (Pelvica = basin (belly), chromis = color, pulcher = beautiful)
Neon Tetra - Paracheirodon innesi - (Para = near, cheir = hand, odon = tooth, innesi = named after Innes)
Oscar - Astronotus ocellatus - (Astro = star, notus = back, ocellatus = spotted as with little eyes)
Pearl Cichlid - Geophagus braziliensis - (Geo = earth, phagus = to eat, braziliensis = from Brazil)
Peppered Corydoras - Corydoras paleatus - (Cory = helmet, doras = skin, paleatus = mixed with chaff)
Swordtail - Xiphophorus helleri - (Xipho = sword, phorus = bearer, helleri = named after Heller).
If you wish to pursue this topic further, look up a dictionary of biological names in your local library (Dewey 574.03). It can be quite fascinating deciphering the scientific names of your fishes.