Talk:Fish/Archive 1

Archive 1

Extending breadth of information

I went to Wikipedia looking for information on the extent to which the fishing trade had reduced fish populations and harmed their underwater habitat. "Fish" should be considered the main encyclopedic entry. Should there not be a heading such as "Fishing and its impact on Fish populations", which could have a terse but useful list to a number of other wiki pages that are (surprisingly) not linked to from "Fish". E.g.

Fishing, the hunting of Fish as Food#1 is an ancient and worldwide practice loosely split into Angling (recreational fishing) and Commercial_fishing. Fish contain Omega 3, helpful at preventing heart disease and suggested to aiding general good health, including limiting mental deteriation in old age #2. Unfortunately, human pollution of the seas has led to mercury containation such that pregnant women are advised not to eat many varieties of wild fish. #3

Commercial overfishing has resulted in significant fish population decline, with a third of fish species collapsing to 10% of their original population since 1950 #4. This has prompted Marine_conservation efforts, breeding fish for food in instead of taking from the wild (Aquaculture), FishingQuotas and efforts to ban controversial forms of fishing, such as Whaling.

1. 1. redirect to Fish (Food)
2. 2. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/fishman/2005/fish_brain.html (Hopefully someone can find a more authoritive-seeming reference?)
3. 3. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/parenting/04/12/fish.pregnant/index.html
4. 4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6108414.stm::

What do you people think?? - SigurdMagnusson 21:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a useful addition, and you've provided sources.... so, why didn't you go ahead and add it? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 21:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you sound quite cross, considering it's just about fish!80.88.220.5 14:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Cold-blooded?

Most fish are "cold-blooded," meaning that they are incapable of controlling their own body temperature within any siginificant range. Most "warm-blooded" animals maintain an elevated body temperature by seperating cardiac chambers, preventing the mixture of oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood. No fish possesses such circulation. However, certain species may be considered, "warm-blooded," achieving a significant ability to maintain a body temperature higher than their surrounding by using counter currents to efficiently swap deoxygenated blood with oxygenated blood within their gills. I believe tuna have such a system.

imperilled

Actually, I've double-checked since my "correction" of "imperilled", and apparently either way is acceptable, one 'l' or two (single 'l' is listed first, generally meaning it's preferred, but no biggy). So I'm certainly not going to bother to change it back, but just so you know, my speling wasn't wrong either. -- John Owens 07:15 16 May 2003 (UTC)

If you look at Tuna it states that they are cold blooded. Is it true that all fish are Poikilothermic? Huddy 22:16, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)huddy

No, it seems there are just a small number of large fast fish of the open ocean with elevated internal temps. Stan 15:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

numbers

"Fishes (over 27,315 species) are a paraphyletic group and are divided into the bony fishes (class Osteichthyes, 22,000 species); cartilaginous fishes (class Chondrichthyes, 800 species); and various groups of jawless fishes (class Agnatha, 75 species)"

Curious to know, what are the other 4,440 not accounted for there? - MPF 14:24, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Osteichthyes number is out of date. Stan 15:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks; should the numbers be amended? - MPF 14:37, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I just finessed this by rewriting the lead to give Osteichthyes "all the others". Stan 17:45, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I quoted the thing about Great whites being the only "Proper" warm blooded fish to a friend and he challenged me on it, just because it didn't sound right to him. I've done some research on the net and this seems to confirm that Great White have no greater claim to warm bloodedness than the aformantioned tuna, or several other related large shark species, like Mako's and Porbeagles. However, I'm not Icthyologist, so I'm kinda timid about changing it. Are there any Icthyologists here who might know for sure? (reincarnationfish)

Well, I'm new to contributing to Wikipedia, but I am an ichthyologist and I have researched white sharks, so I guess I'm qualified to weigh in here. The previous person is fundamentally correct -- there are several endothermic fishes. White sharks are pretty good at it, but the real champs are probably porbeagle sharks and some of the tunas. It is still open for debate whether these spp. constitute true endotherms or highly specialized poikilotherms. I fall on the side of endothermy, and I think the literature supports that adequately. I hope no one minds -- I am going to make some changes to the web page text. John Kelly (19 Apr 2005)

Evolution of fish

Do you think that adding some info on the evolution of fish would be a good idea? Enochlau 09:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Adding info is always a good idea!Emmett5 00:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Not all the time: Suicide method.... [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.221.100.33 (talk) 20:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Do fish feel pain?

The article needs a new section of this title.

There was a lot of controversy over this and a lot of vegetarians used to eat fish because there was supposed evidence that they didn't feel pain. But then apparently that got overturned.

I'm surprised there's nothing about it here, it was a pretty major thing. o_O Please, anyone help if you can. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 03:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm no ichthyologist, but that seems sort of impossible. If fish have nerve endings at all, they should be able to feel pain. Also, if you can ward off sharks by punching them in the nose, I don't see why they would leave except that you=hurt. Although, in the vegetarians defense, by the time they're eating fish, the fish are (usually) dead, and therefore cannot feel pain. Sir Chocobo 11:03, 15 August 2006

Just having nerve endings doesn't mean you feel pain. There's a variety of mechanisms involved with any sensation, from the nerves to the brain, and there's been a variety of theories and studies done on the matter. Some believe that the fish lack the proper neocortex structure to "feel" pain, so while they respond to "painful" stimuli, they don't "feel" it (it's a reflex, or maybe instinctual self-preservation mechanism like other animals avoiding plants/animals with certain colors). Other studies show elevated levels of pain-indicative things (though I couldn't tell you what off the top of my head), or discredit the "no neocortex" idea. I think a solid conclusion is pretty up in the air at this point, but I'm sure you could find plenty of information out there on the subject. --Xanzzibar 17:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Plants like Mimosas also react directly to outside stimuli by folding their leaves, but no one could reasonably say that they feel pain in any way we could possibly relate to. Even if fish do "feel" pain as a sensation there is still no indication that they would also "suffer" because of this (suffering from pain not quite the same as simply feeling pain). In any instance, whatever they feel (if they even have enough sentience to feel) is probably so fundamentally different from what primates or other mammals experience that it can't be reasonably called pain anymore. --TheOtherStephan 02:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the notion that fish feel pain is pretty well publicised in the academic field now. Lynn Sneddon at University of Liverpool in England has written several articles on this and has been giving guest lectures around the ciruit. Here's a link to her website Lynn Sneddon and an article she has online Can Animals Feel Pain? Ciar 19:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Your linked article pretty much confirms what I said: There are clear responses to painful stimuli, but whether or not they truly "feel" it is still a matter of conjecture. From the article: "In conclusion, it is currently impossible to prove whether animals are capable of emotional pain, but it is equally impossible to disprove it." --Xanzzibar 19:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's impossible to prove another human feels pain, really. Still, he's going to say "ouch" if I poke him with a needle, and he'll describe the sensation as painful, and that's close enough for me. Given other animals can't describe sensations, but certainly act out the rest of the apparent indicators of pain, I see no point in claiming that they don't. The evidence accumulated strongly suggests that they do. Claiming it's less than certain is purest psuedoscience: Everything is less than certain, that's why science works off the best current explanation, not some mythical "what's totally known". --Suttkus 21:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It's possib;e to know if humans feel pain. It's known from the way they react. People who are unable to feel won't react to the pain. Fish may be the same. ɱўɭĩє^{What did I do}_wrong 23:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Sailfish nominated for SCOTW

I've just nominated the sailfish article as Science Collaboration of the Week. Please visit Wikipedia:Science collaboration of the week and vote for the article. Thanks. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 08:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

How many fish in the sea?

How many fish are there in the sea? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.113.104.47 (talk • contribs) .

There are several ways to answer your question: 1. how many species of fish are there, or 2. how many actual fish are there. To answer the first one, there are almost 30,000 species of fish in the world (although some are freshwater, and thus probably do not live in the sea). The short answer to the second question is, no one knows. This site gives similar information. Determining how many fish of a given species is one of the great challeges to managing a stock of fish. One common method for trying to answer that question is called Mark and recapture. Incidentally, your best bet for asking questions is Wikipedia:Reference desk. Cheers, --Hansnesse 17:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

More on Fish

This article needs more on:

How do fish respirate? How do they keep their blood warm? Not all fishes are oviparous (ex. Whale Shark) etc; all kind of morphology stuff. I may add what little I know.

Classifications

Email received by the Foundation: This is the categorization of FISH. Actinopterygii is listed as a subcategory of Chondrichthyes. On their separate pages, they are both listed as Classes. If this is the case, shouldn't Actinopterygii be a subclass? What's the proper categorization? Your pages don't match.

Are whales fish ?

The question is more complicated than it seems. Your definition of fish relies on two major points : being cold-blooded and having gills. But some fish (the Protopterus or Lungfish) gets only 10% of its oxygen through its reduced gills, and some species of tuna (not only tunas but also other species, as mentionned in the main article and in the above discussion) maintain a temperature which is 20° higher than their surroundings (a fact mentionned in the wiki article on tunas). Still, it is considered without much debate that they're fish. Moreover, what's the rationale for a category containing Chondrictyes, Agnatha and Osteichtyes ; all paraphyletic groups, as mentionned ? Thus, as argued by philosopher John Dupré (in Humans and other Animals), it is highly dubbious that the word 'fish' has any real scientific usage. Whence this question : after all, why can't whales be fish ? It is generaly said that this is because they are mammals. What's the point of this answer ? Why couldn't some animals be mammals AND fish ? Since fish (to say the least) is not a uniform and homogeneous category, we should expect a better reason for ruling this possibility out other than the authority of what is simply said and constantly reassessed.

Fish is a taxonomic classification, requiring such principles as obtaintaing oxygen from water, being aquatic, etc. Fish are all similar to each other, and belong (I think, any more enlightened users are free to correct me) to the same family. Whales are mammals, which is another taxonomic classifaction, requiring warm blood, obtaining oxygen from the air, etc. Whales cannot be fish because fish and whales belong to different taxonomic categories. Great question!Emmett5 01:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Why did someone remove the fish versus fishes section?

The use of fish versus fishes section, which was removed, was a valuable section. Indeed, the American Fisheries Society, for its publication guidelines, laid out very clear guidelines on the use of the terms that was similar to what was there. Some notable authors use fishes as the plural as well. That section helped the reader to understand that "fish" is not the only plural form of the term, which is a common misunderstanding.

Agree, I put it back! Stefan 12:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Under the Fish/Fishes section it reads: 'The collective noun for a random assemblage of fish...', shouldn't it say fishes?

Fish - Anatomy

Can someone tell me if the following is true

Fish have very good eyesight and can see in all directions at the same time

Fish have airbag which help to stay upright

Eyesight depends on the fish. Many fishes have protruding eyes on the side of the head, so they can see all around, but not all do. Flatfish have both eyes on one side of the head, so they certainly can't see in all directions, but since they lie flat on the bottom, it doesn't matter. For many fishes the lateral line is more important.

2nd question: see gas bladder

This article lacks general Fish anatomy. Some facts that apply to most Fishes will be useful. Ecology section and Fishing should be mentioned.

Fish points

Some common misconceptions about fish should be added such as:

i)Do fish sleep?
ii)Do fish defacate or urinate?
iii) Do fish drink (sea/ocean)) water?
iv) Can fish hear?

Deletion.

Vandal caused the page to be unreadable, from what seems to be the conversation in IRC. Could not be RVed, needed some amazing tech delete. --Avillia 00:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed comment on slime from "Classification": put shorter sentence in Fish anatomy article. (Slime is not just for when fish are taken out of water: some fish live so deep that being taken out of water is extremely unlikely, but they are still slimy.) Myopic Bookworm 15:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject on Fish Articles

Does anyone else think there should be a project to improve fish related articles? There are many many articles for different kinds of fish, but those articles are horrible and hardly worthy to be on wikipedia.

If anyone is interested, please help me improve Goldfish. Thanks! QuizQuick 02:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You mean a project like Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes? Stan 06:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Taxon box

Where is it? Falconleaf

"Fish" is not a taxon - the term subsumes several taxonomic groups. The first paragraph says, but with too many long words :-) , should be clarified. Stan 04:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

So shouldn't this article use a taxobox similar to the Goanna one. Have it go up to Tetrapoda, and then under it say, in part. Then have a see text under groups. --liquidGhoul 08:45, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Taxoboxes are for taxa. The "in part" idea is just asking for trouble - add the taxobox, and then other editors will want to "fix" it in one incorrect way or another. Better to think of this as a "disambig page on steroids"; most readers will be content to stop here, but we provide the links should they wish to choose an actual taxon and delve into ToL proper. Stan 13:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Who cares if they want to change it. If it is wrong, it isn't hard to change back. I seriously doubt you would have much trouble in this area. A taxobox is very useful for a quick guide. If someone comes here and sees "in part", it is obvious that it is a broad term for many tetrapods. When you don't see anything, it is confusing (as it is expected), and annoying that you have to read through the text to get info which should be very quickly accessable.

I would like to at least give it a go. If there is lots of confusion, and people want it changed back, then I would oblige. But there is no harm in trialing it. Thanks --liquidGhoul 14:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, it's been tried and deleted at least once - see [2] and adjacent history. Stan 03:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

That example says that it hasn't been tried. It is not what I said, and had many problems associated with it. --liquidGhoul 05:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

OK then, I've given my best advice, what you do with it is up to you. Stan 16:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

You know, I have thought about it, and I agree with you now. Sorry to be a bother. --liquidGhoul 14:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Heads Up

The fish talk page was recently shown on this site[3] (8-bit theatre, for those of you who dont recognize). The article was on a fake wikipedia imitation, Magipedia. It was stated that fish are like plants that move, and I'm just saying that someone is bound to make an edit related to this. Thought you'd like to know.DoomsDay349 04:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I fixed your link to show the correct strip instead of the latest one. Paladinwannabe2 20:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

U r a idoit. LOLOLOLOLOLO ;) - Fëaluinix 12:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Someone already did make an edit related to this. Check the history of the discussion. In "Do fish feel pain?" someone changed the whole thing to "I mean, come on. They're basically moving plants. It's not like they'd be able to calculate the nuances of M-Theory." You have no proof it was me. 13:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC) (DAMN YOU FëALUINIX! YOU BEAT ME TO IT!)

Freakin hilarious to whoever added that little fish mining comment on my message. DoomsDay349 16:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought you did that. You have no proof it was me. 18:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It was kind of funny "How i mine for fish, seriously!" -Hito

Successful groups

The page says, "Fish are the second-most successful group of animals in terms of number of species. Only arthropods are more numerous, partly due to the number of insect species."

This is difficult to support. "Group of animals" is ambiguous at best. Vertebrates are more successful than fish, in that they include fish, for example. It might be better to compare phyla to phyla, order to order, but even there, since none of these groupings are "real" (taxa being a classification convenience), there's really no way to define "group" such that you can make equal comparissons (and fish aren't even a taxonomic grouping, you might as well compare fish to bugs).

Worse for the sentence, there are over 100,000 species of mollusc, making fish, at best, the third most successful "group" of animals. (And a better understanding of nematodes would probably shove them to fourth.) I can't think of any standard of "group" that would leave fish the second most successful.

--Suttkus 15:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Either downgrading to the standard fallback "one of the most" or dropping altogether would be sensible - they're already characterized in the lede as most diverse among vertebrates, and there's really not much point in trying to compare to other taxa. Stan 21:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Definition

The article defines fish as "A fish is a water-dwelling vertebrate with gills, that remains so throughout its life." This fails to exclude several types of amphibians who also remain water-dwelling vertebrates with gills throughout their lives. Examples include Axolotl and mudpuppies. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of a definition of fish that's neither over-inclusive nor too difficult for lay readers.

--Suttkus 21:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ongoing vandalism

Given this page seems to be under some kind of attack by vandals, wouldn't it be appropriate to semi-protect it? --Suttkus 03:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone explain to me why this article is attacked so often? I mean, it's not like fish is a remotely controversial subject. Yet this page is hit by vandals more often than any page I pay attention to that isn't actually about a pseudoscience. What's up with that? --Suttkus 20:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much all of the one-word common terms get the juvenile one-offs - look at "duck", "ball", etc. This article maybe gets a bit more; perhaps there's some grade-school subculture where the word has taken on new meanings recently. Anyway, going by Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy, this one could be a candidate, doesn't hurt to suggest it. Stan 13:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, there was this: http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=060815 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.30.21.12 (talk) 23:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

References

Which ones supplied which information? There are no in-line citations in this article at all. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps because the obsession with inline citations is of relatively recent origin. Amazingly enough, people were writing well-sourced WP articles for many years before inlines were even implemented. Stan 20:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I know that. It's just a suggestion for an area where this article could be improved. I could have just added fact tags to everything. I only noticed because an IP removed the whole reference section and for a moment I thought it was completely unreferenced. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Links: a suggestion

It seems to me to be insane to have large numbers of aquarium fish links here. All these will do is attract people trying to advertise their forum or club, or worse, their tropical fish store.

What I suggest is that links here be restricted to fish biology from a scientific point of view (i.e., not aquarium fish profiles). Links for fish-related hobbies and industries should be on those particular Wikipedia pages. I created a page Fishkeeping which covers the hobby, and there are a certain number of external links there (though these are constantly being pruned). To be honest, I am getting increasingly aggressive in removing external links, as it seems every club and forum wants to use Wikipedia as an advertisement.

Comments? Neale Monks 09:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and pruned the links. Divided them up into fish science categories, and added "see also" links above to things like fishkeeping and angling. I see no reason to include hobby-oriented links on this page, since we already have fish hobby Wikipedia pages.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 15:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Along those lines, I replaced the guppy image with something a little less hobby oriented. There are probably many other better shots in the commons, this one just seemed to jump out at me. I tried to find a better spot in the article for the guppy pic and caption, but it would just seem to be out of context - I'll try to place it at fishkeeping or aquarium. Kuru ^talk 15:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Life Span

I'm surprised this article doesn't have one of the basic facts about most animals; their lifespan. This article should include the average lifespan of most fish, and then a species of fish that has one of the longest average lifespans, and one that has one of the shortest.

There is no "average" lifespan. You have species that complete their entire lifecycle within a single year (e.g., annual killifish), and many reach sexual maturity within 3-4 months (e.g., guppies). The annual killifish in particular are adapted to survive in temporary streams and pools, where the adults die each year but the eggs survive in the mud until the wet season next year.

On the other hand, there are species that grow extremely slowly (e.g., Anatarctic and deep sea fish) that likely take a decade or more to mature and live lifespans around 30-50 years, with estimates for longevity for some species of Sebastes being in the 90-120 year region. Spiny dogfish are known to live for 70 years, while American and European eels inhabit freshwaters for decades (~40 years) before becoming sexually mature and making their way to the sea for their single breeding event. (For these estimates, see especially p 140 in Helfman et. al., "The Diversity of Fishes", Blackwell Science).

There are broad trends though: big fish tend to live longer than smaller ones, and fish in cold and/or deep water tend to grow more slowly (and therefore live longer) than similar size fish in warmer and/or shallower waters. As a ball-park figure, you could mention the common goldfish when kept in a pond (rather than a bowl) lives for around 20-30 years with the record being over 40 years.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 11:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The Australian freshwater fish Murray cod can reach ages of at least 49 years, and it appears larger specimens of yesteryear reached even greater ages. They are a very long-lived freshwater fish. Codman 09:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Fish in culture

I'd like propose this topic to be included. This article is heavily about biology which is good. But there should be some other dimensions too. More than half of the article is spent on fish anatomy and homeothermy, but only two sentences (in the introduction paragraph) mentioned fish in culture. If the rat article has "rats in culture" and the elephant article has "humanity and elephants", maybe this article should have something similar too. --Melanochromis 21:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I touched on this in the intro section, but there should certainly be more. The ichthys symbol is certain one of the best known fish emblems, even more so with all the fun Darwin and whatnot versions you see! Obviously there are all kinds of things that could be included, from Henry Williamson's Salar the Salmon novel through to Jaws. All good stuff! Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 23:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I was going to suggest the same before I saw your post. Perhaps make it a separate article or list, with links to Taiyaki, Bungeoppang, Asian carp/A'Fu etc. – Wikipeditor 02:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Looking much better

Just wanted to say, I think this article is looking much better. Thanks to everyone who's making useful contributions. For a group as important as fish, it makes sense that this article is top-quality.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 12:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Plural of "fish": redirects

The plural of "fish" can either be "fish" or "fishes". I believe we should create redirects to pages about animals whose common name ends in "fish" (for example, create a page named "Crayfishes", redirecting to "Crayfish"). --Crabby 16:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Re-add Redirect

I want to re-add,

For the article on the human consumption of fish, see Fish (food).

or something similar at the top to this page, since, fish has two direct meanings, the animal, and the food, and this is unrelated to the very long disambiguation page. Many other articles do this such as Russia comes to mind do this, with both a direct link to a page and a disambiguation. Epson291 21:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I hope it's not neccessary anymore. I just did a big clean-up job of the Fish (disambiguation) page, so that the main meanings of the word (the animal, the food, the activity) are clearly separate from all the rest of the stuff. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 22:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks much better. I bolded the other two uses of the word "fish" so all 3 are bolded and very clear. Hopefully, this is satisfactory to you. Epson291 05:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

NPOV Issue with Danger to Fish Populations

Fish are mammals. This section of the article appears to reflect the writer's opinions on human population, global warming and their effect on fish populations which may be in violation of Wikipedia's NPOV guidelines. This section should be re-writen to attribute these opinions to others with the appropriate citations given. --Clayc3466 01:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. The writer's opinions are (sadly) probably valid though. Neale Monks 13:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

is it possible to publish a seperate article on the dangers of these issues to the fish population? Barny-the-barnicle (talk) 20:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Question

What is the name of that species of fish that is not good in the US? It was the like the snake-head fish or something. It could kill anything in the waters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.66.145 (talk) 05:43, 19 February 2007

The fish that the media like to run as a scare story is indeed the snakehead fish. There are a few species (notably Channa argus) that live in subtropical and temperate zone climates and could potentially become established in the United States. Without their natural predators, they have the potential to be a serious pest though whether as bad as carp, rainbow trout, tilapia, or Nile perch is unknown (all of those have been introduced into various foreign countries and cause serious harm to the ecosystems in many cases). It is illegal to own live snakeheads in some states (though the laws don't appear to distinguish between the coldwater species and the tropical species like Channa bleheri that couldn't possible become established anywhere except perhaps Florida and the Gulf Coast (for example, the State of New York:[4]). Snakeheads certainly are hardy (being air-breathers) and voracious (eating anything they can swallow) but they aren't ecologically much different to native species of pike or catfish. Even if they were set loose in every river in the Union, they'd do less harm that building dams, removing water for agriculture, pollution, and so on. In other words, compared with human actions, snakeheads are a mere trifle. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 09:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Good article nomination passed

This article has excellent supplementing photographs, good content, excellent references and is laid out in a clear and easy to understand format. I definitely think this article passes as a good article. Ninja! 16:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Question

Do fish feel pain? —Bearmancorn (talk • contribs) 15:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

Fish do have a central nervous system, so it stands to reason that fish do feel pain like other vertebrates. Fish also avoid stimulus that could cause pain, which is its primary purpose... the avoidance of injury. Therefore, I would say that fish are capable of feeling pain. Of course, this does not mean that the experience of pain is comparable for a fish as it is, say, for a human or other animal. Humans have more highly developed nervous systems, as well as self-awareness. Fish have relatively simple brains and short memories... and probably experience suffering on a more basic, survival level. There is a lot of research that can be done on this. 209.59.32.70 18:34, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• I would agree with this but it is hard to do research on fish weather or not they feel pain because you would have to inflict pain on the fish, and that could bring up a lot of opposition on weather or not its okay to do harm to animals in studies —70.231.237.199 (talk) 01:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

its true he is right —Freelancer197 (talk • contribs) 15:52, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

more info needed on salinity

the differences between a saltwater fish and a freshwater fish. Oidia 11:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

There isn't a difference. If you find a fish in the sea, it's a saltwater fish. If you find it in freshwater, it's a freshwater fish. The distinction is one of physiological adaptation: some fish can live in both fresh- and saltwater habitats, while others are restricted to either freshwater or saltwater habitats. The former, able to adapt to changes in salinity, are called euryhaline fish. The latter, unable to tolerate changes in salinity, are stenohaline fish. Most fishes are stenohaline, for example minnows (in freshwater) and most sharks (in the sea). But a sizeable number are euryhaline, either because their life cycle involves migrations between freshwater and the sea (e.g. salmon) whereas others simply move between freshwater and the sea in search of food (e.g. bull sharks). I agree this needs to be explained in the text. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 11:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

How do they get into remote ponds?

Please add a section mentioning how fish manage to get into the remotest water storage tanks (where they end up transparent due to no light -- why too?), and freshly dug hilltop ponds. Eggs clinging to birds feet? Thus into the pond and down whatever pipe into the tank from any surface water? Jidanni 23:53, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Human Face Fish

Some help in improving this article would be appreciated. Thanks. — EliasAlucard|Talk 15:32 23 Jul, 2007 (UTC)

I've clarified the science a little. It isn't a new species. It isn't a hybrid. It doesn't have the facial features of a human. It's a type of ornamental carp, a cross between two varieties of Cyprinus carpio (specifically, the common variety and the leather carp variety). The only human-like feature is the markings on its head and perhaps its head shape under certain lights. This is as unremarkable as the tomato with a rosary of seeds on the inside or the potato that looked like Richard Nixon. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 09:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Please continue this discussion on its talk page — EliasAlucard|Talk 18:16 23 Jul, 2007 (UTC)

Mention ancient heritage in intro?

The intro doesn't currently point out that fish are some of the oldest creatures in Earth's history. Should this be added? Chris Cunningham 16:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Scientific classification

Why does this article not have the scientific classification-box? —Mweites (talk • contribs) 20:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Read this section, "Unlike groupings such as birds or mammals, fish are not a single clade but a paraphyletic collection of taxa, including hagfishes, lampreys, sharks and rays, ray-finned fishes, coelacanths, and lungfishes.", i.e. in laymans terms, fish is all over the place in the taxonomic tree, see Chordate, Chondrichthyes are fish, but not Tetrapoda, Myxini/hagfish is fish but not Conodonta, so what would you put in the taxobox. Good question, I learned something new today!!! --Stefan ^talk 14:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Fishes are a superinfraphylum called "Piscēs". Piscēs includes ALL fishes and excludes terapods, conodonts, and ALL other animals that ARE NOT fishes. Scientific/Biological Classification of Fishes:

Fishes
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Subphylum:	Vertebrata

Davidlittle9 (talk) 03:45, 17 August 2009 (UTC)Dave Little

Peer review

Hello, I have requested a peer review of this article (which can be found here.) Thank you Cocoaguy ここがいい_contribs^talk Review Me! 15:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

not all fish have scales

the article's intro implies to the contrary--Ted-m (talk) 01:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Fish body shapes

I was trying to look up some info regarding the common body shapes of fish, but found no entries that were helpful. I was wondering if a section on this topic could be added somewhere. I know 4 terms have been used, but don't know if they're still used. Below are the terms, but I don't know if I have the right definitions/examples of each (if this terminology is even used, anymore).

To the best of my knowledge:

Fusiform is torpedo-shaped; ex. is a tuna, Compressiform is laterally compressed; ex. most fish, Depressiform is dorso-laterally compressed; ex. halibut or flounder, & Anguilliform is Eel-shaped.

Please comment. Thanks! Leia tyndall (talk) 20:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Plural of fish

Am I wrong in thinking that there is no such word as "fishes"? I always thought the plural of "fish" was "fish" yet Wikipedia has many instances of the word "fishes". Should they be changed to "fish"? 1dragon (talk) 10:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Read the terminology section (10.1) of the article --Graminophile (talk) 17:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Aha! That's interesting. Thank you, 1dragon (talk) 10:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The plural of fish can be FISH where you refer to more than one of the same species, or FISHES when talking about more than one of multiple species

Clarification

Does fish has Cloaca or separated posterior openings for the intestinal, urinary, and genital? Idvash (talk) 17:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Pain reception in fish: "Other researchers"

I'm removing the following sentence from the article:

Other researchers say the question of pain in fish is difficult to answer as fish "pain" may be felt differently than human "pain."[5]

Although cited, the reference is not an authority or a reliable source. Further, the point being made is trivial, and understated at that. It's rather naive to attribute the observation to "other researchers" -- as if any scientist working in the area could think otherwise! Melchoir (talk) 08:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

goldfish that can't dump their eggs

I have a female that is absolutely bursting with eggs. Is it possible that she has no channel to the outside? Can I do anything to help her? I'm a first time visitor, so if I have committed a boo-boo, please forgive, but I don't know who to ask or where to go to for information. Margaret207.118.166.4 (talk) 23:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but this isn't the best place to go. Try somewhere else. This isn't too big of a problem though so dont worry too much. DPM 15:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Corvus coronoides _talk 14:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Fish?

Anybody know what type of fish this is?

DPM 15:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

DPM: I'm pretty sure these are Carp. (user without account, 26 Aug 2009) 75.41.157.125 (talk) 20:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here . If you have concerns , please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 12:30, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Bones?

Under taxonomy I notice a section on muscles, but none on skeletons. I am sure I'm not the only one who has come to this article to find out why fish bones are so flexible after nearly choking on one, and considering the muscular/skeletal system are usually discussed in the same breath, would someone with a generous knowledge of this subject add the info? I have next to zero knowledge on zoology, so I would not be the man for this job. LeilaniLad (talk) 14:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Fish encyclopedia on wikia

Someone has started a wiki about fish on wikia. I think this would be a nice thing to get this done. Unfortunatelly nothing yet. I'll post some content, pls help me expand. No I cant do it.

--Adazarus (talk) 08:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

oh, just in case http://fish.wikia.com/wiki/ --Adazarus (talk) 08:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Minor Edit Requests

Spelling/Grammatical error:

In the section on the nervous sytem: "At the front are the olfactory lobes, a pair of structure the receive and process signals from the nostrils via the two olfactory nerves."

"structure the" should be "structures that" 76.69.74.40 (talk) 18:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Sea Kittens?

I'm not sure if this discussion has been had already or not, but apparently PETA is trying to change the name fish to "Sea Kittens." Should this be added to the article?

Source: http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/-Smashbrosboy (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

No. Marketing campaigns have nothing to do with fish. Add it to the PETA page. 158.81.251.201 (talk) 18:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe that was tuna anyway. Marketing campaigns could actually have quite a lot to do with fish, but not in this case.--Gloriamarie (talk) 03:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Super Vision

"Nearly all daylight fish have well-developed eyes that have color vision that is at least as good as a human's"

Are you sure? As far as I know, the best fish vision is 3 times worse than human's vision. If this is right, someone should provide a source.

They probably do have color vision, but I doubt it's quite the resolution of 20/20 human eyes. They best fish eyes could see better than humans with 20/70 vision, if you're right that the best fish vision is 20/60. -The Mysterious El Willstro 209.183.185.77 (talk) 18:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Please add IW

[[wuu:鱼]] THX !! (interwiki link)

It looks like it has been added. 192.17.199.112 (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Room for expansion: excretory system

There is discussion in the excretory system section about the chemical content of the fish urine, and it is mentioned that some of the waste leaves through the gills, but where does the rest of it go? Do the have a urethra, or do they diffuse it through their skin?

Fish expert needed! 206.53.64.108 (talk) 01:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Old English

It might be noted that this is an Old English word with cognates in several other Germanic Languages. While the "chordate" meaning may predate the word's becoming a scientific, technical term, it should be noted that the original meaning, "aquatic creature", is still very much in evidence today, as in jellyfish, starfish, cuttlefish, etc. I think some still call the Orca Blackfish. The point being, these words were formed before the narrowing of the meaning of "fish", and are not some evidence that the Saxons couldn't tell a cephalopod from a fish. By the way, this may also explain the use of "Fish" in older English versions of the Bible to refer to whales. Chrisrus (talk) 06:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way again, the same thing is true of "tide", which used to mean "a distinctive patch of water" and was a very important word for a seafaring people, and hence "Tidal Wave" or "Red Tide" are not evidence that our linguistic ancestors didn't know the difference between the daily tides and an algae bloom, or that "Tidal Wave" is some kind of misnomer needing correction from a foreign borrowing, as if the Japanese understood the truth about them and the Saxons not. Sigh! If only scientists knew a bit more about the history of the words they commandeer. Chrisrus (talk) 06:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Retrofit talk-page year headers/subpages

30-Aug-09: I have added subheaders above as "Topics from 2007" (etc.) to emphasize the dates of topics in the talk-page. Older topics might still apply, but using the year headers helps to focus on more current issues as well. Afterwards, I cut auto-signed comments and removed 8 vandal texts. Then I added "Talk-page subpages" at the TOC. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:46, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

What is the purpose of changing other editors signatures, I can see why for vandal comments? 192.17.199.112 (talk) 20:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Some speculate

{{editsemiprotected}} The paragraph that starts with "Some speculate that fish" in the evolution section needs either a citation or a {{who}} tag. See WP:WEASEL. 192.17.199.112 (talk) 20:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done Tim Song (talk) 22:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The definition of 'fish'.

As stupid out elsewhere here, the definition of fish in the opening line is problematic. Not only are some fish scale-less, but under this definition we could include sea turtles and any number of extinct marine reptiles such as mosasaurs, and plesiosaurs, which may well have been scale-bearing. I propose an alternative definition:

"Fish are all invertebrates that are tetrapods, they live on land, use pharyngeal lungs for gas exchange, and whose only appendages are fins instead of digit-bearing limbs (i.e. no fingers and toes)."

Or something to similar effect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Braz (talk • contribs) 15:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I thought that the part of the current definition which specifies, "equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins" already excludes turtles and other marine reptiles, irrespective of scales. Having said that, I don't see why your definition couldn't be combined with the current one in some form. A few points, however:

(1) Are "pharyngeal gills" restricted to non-tetrapod vertebrates? If the external gills of larval amphibians grow from the pharyngeal arches, this characteristic tells us nothing specifically and uniquely about fishes.

(2) Some fossil creatures transitional to tetrapods bore appendages that resemble both fins and limbs, with a fringe of digits (more than five), although often incapable of supporting the animal on land. Remember that these animals were close to tetrapods but are excluded on technicalities. Fishes, or not? Legs, or fins with fingers?

(3) Some living and fossil fishes lack true paired fins. I've read definitions of fishes which would exclude hagfishes (or hags), lampreys, and possibly other (extinct) jawless 'fishes' for exactly that reason. In effect, "non-tetrapod gnathostomes" might be the maximum that you could get everybody to agree on, but inevitably some would feel that is not inclusive enough.

(4) I would use "craniates" as a more precise term than "vertebrates" if hagfishes are included, because hagfishes lack vertebrae.

Just to throw in yet another bone of contention: for some cladists, all of us tetrapods are a peculiar sort of fishes anyway -- members of a subgroup of the clade Osteichthyes (literally, "bony fishes"). Other taxonomists say, on the contrary, that lungfishes and coelacanths, being close to tetrapods, are not really fishes but only "fish-like".

I think these points would need discussion before a new definition or description were agreed. Gnostrat (talk) 22:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

The part about paired and unpaired fins doesn't exclude marine reptiles: Ichthyosaurs have a median dorsal fin, which is an unpaired 'fin'. One could argue, however, that ichthyosaurs (and other marine reptiles) have flippers and not fins. Given the tendency for people to lack a colloquial distinction between these, I doubt a wiki article should assume otherwise.

(1) No, pharyngeal gills are not restricted to 'fishes'. No characters are restricted to fishes, that's why fishes are not monophyletic: they have no single homology that can diagnose them. So, they must be defined based on a cluster of phenetic similarities. We'll go on and on forever if you want to find a character that can define 'fish', but many have tried and all have failed (unless you want to restrict the definition to Actinopterygii). So, the definition I used has two parts: "All vertebrates (or craniates) that are not tetrapods", which should be sufficient by itself, but the typical diagnosis requires a combination of characters some of which may or may not be present in all fishes. Such is the nature of paraphyletic groups. However, we have to be sure that our definition could not equally apply to an ichthyosaur or other aquatic vertebrates.

(2) Again, this is the nature of paraphyletic groups: they are non-real and decisions to call Tiktaalik a fish and Acanthostega a tetrapod are based solely on the presence of digits in the latter. Tiktaalik does not have digits, but radials that resemble digits in some ways. Radials, however, are found in all bony 'fishes', lobe-finned or not. Being a paleontologist who works on the fossil 'fishes' that are most closely related to tetrapods, I understand the supposed issues regarding digits in these forms. Again, however, this is a probly with a paraphyletic grouping and a definition of Tetrapoda that relies on apomorphies, rather than the crown group and total group. That's another matter for another time.

(3) One could qualify the statement about fins with "and whose only paired appendages (if any)...". What matters for a Wikipedia entry is how this definition can be used and interpreted.

(4) Yes, we could use craniate instead of vertebrate, but it matters only if we believe lamprey and hagfish are not immediate sister taxa.

'Fish' is a non-real grouping. it is paraphyletic. The different cladistic viewpoints raised are just nomenclatural treatments of the same problem: paraphyly. I would include Tetrapoda within Osteichthyes. However, I would refrain from using "Pisces", since it's paraphyletic and other names have nomenclatural priority when it comes to identifying clades it might conceivably be applied to: Gnathostomata, Vertebrata, Craniata. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Braz (talk • contribs) 15:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad I'm talking to someone who knows this stuff better than I do. I don't think our positions are actually that far apart, although I still have issues.

(0) "Several unpaired fins" does seem to exclude the ichthyosaur's single dorsal fin. Although I take your point on fins and flippers. I would have said insert something like: "not to be confused with the flippers of some tetrapods", but even the linked WP article can barely draw a distinction.

(1) I wasn't looking for one single defining character. I understand the futility of that, given the problem of paraphyly. But one could also go on and on listing features that are present, in combination, in all or most of the animals commonly accepted as fishes but which also appear in some other group(s). So the point I was making concerns the simplest or minimum combination of characters that would suffice to cover our unreal grouping. If we say "all craniates/vertebrates/gnathostomes that are not tetrapods", we don't need to talk about fins and gills at this stage. We just establish the two invariables: they have skulls/backbones/jaws but don't have limbs with digits. Afterwards, we could detail those characters which are typically, but not invariably nor exclusively, present in the lineages which diverged between those two defining nodes. I think this is what you had in mind anyway, it's just that the typical diagnosis reads like part of the definition.

(2) Fair enough if you know exactly where to draw the line between a fish and a tetrapod.

Which leaves (3) our lower node up for debate. The various opinions should be discussed neutrally in the article. The problem it poses for the intro is this: if we say, "whose only paired appendages are fins", we are committing to the view which excludes lampreys and hags. If we say, "whose only paired appendages (if any) are fins", we are still committing to a view, the one which includes lampreys and hags (hence the qualification). I can't see that there's one simple description that would be neutral between these concepts. The intro would just need to explain that there are broader and stricter ways of defining a fish and tell us, briefly, what those alternatives are. Your "paired fins" diagnosis could treat lampreys and hags as exceptions which prove the rule, if they descend from fin-bearing ancestors. It's more problematic if their lack of paired fins is a plesiomorphy. Those who would exclude them on the grounds that they never evolved paired fins in the first place would say that the defining node for fishes had simply not been reached.

(4) You're right. If cyclostomes are a valid clade, then Craniata and Vertebrata are synonymous. It's a big if, though. In any case, Craniata is the unambiguously all-inclusive name and using it here would cover all eventualities.

(5) Sure, the various cladistic re-definitions of 'fish' are different ways of dealing with paraphyly, but that doesn't mean they can be ignored. For the purposes of this article they are still Out-There definitions which have to be acknowledged. I'd be happier, myself, if cladists were a little less cavalier with etymologies and applied names in senses which approximate to popular usage. Any clade or taxon which includes Tetrapoda should never be called by a name with -ichthyes in it. In supra-familial taxa it's common enough for names to change, reflecting improved phylogeny (e.g. protist phyla are swapped about between -zoa, -phyta, -mycota and -ista terminations depending on where they are re-assigned). Just leave the Osteichthyes + Tetrapoda node unnamed, or call it something else (Osteota? Osteozoa?). And if the Linnaean name Pisces were preserved, it seems most sensibly restricted to Actinopterygii, which contains the overwhelming majority of the species popularly identified as 'fishes'. All the same, if enough cladists insist on saying that tetrapods are fishes, I think it would be remiss for this article not to report it.

I'll see if I can come up with some concrete form of words that I can put back to you. Please don't let that inhibit you from replying in the meantime. Gnostrat (talk) 05:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

(0) This is needlessly complicated.

(1) Okay. As long as we're in agreement with this particular way of defining a 'fish' (any vertebrate-craniate that isn't a tetrapod), perhaps we should go with that. This satisfies both cladistic and non-cladistic views of what a fish is. Then simply qualify this statement further by saying that this can include jawless fishes (hags and lamprey), chondrichthyans (sharks, skates, rays), and bony fishes (both lobe-finned and ray-finned). Thirdly, state that fish are a non-natural (i.e. paraphyletic) grouping that arbitrarily excludes tetrapods. This obviates the need to find characters that define what a 'fish' is, acknowledges the paraphyletic nature of 'fish', and provides a classification that accommodates both traditional and cladistic views. Taxonomies can be quite fluid historically and one can cover elsewhere the problem of the Craniata vs. Vertebrata (or even the term Craniata-Vertebrata itself could be used).

(2) Well, I don't believe there is a line, of course. The line drawn is not real, so that ambiguity should be allowed for in the definition. Again, it's a problem with the notion of a 'fish', not with the researchers' ability to find the features.

(3+4) This seems to concern nomenclature, unless we wish to consider the debate about the Cyclostomata in this article. That might be covered in a separate article, namely one about the Cyclostomata? Come to think of it, "Fish" is already paraphyletic, so the monophyly of Cyclostomata is of no consequence. Decisions about whether "Fish" includes hagfishes (regardless of Cyclostome monophyly) is a matter of taste, I think.

(5)I'm not sure what this is about. The viewpoints you presented are not really in conflict. I'm not proposing that one ignore alternative viewpoints on anything. Rather, I'm referring to your initial statement that two particular views are "contrary" and a "bone of contention". In fact, they are identical statements (if one only names monophyletic groups). All I am stating is the reason why Tetrapoda becomes a subset of Osteichthyes and we retain the name, but drop Pisces. If you take all Tetrapoda to be included within Pisces, then Pisces just becomse Vertebrata-Craniata. In other words, we already have a name for that. On the other hand, if we take Osteichthyes to inclue Tetrapoda, we did not already have a name for that grouping, so the name Osteichthyes sticks. The fact that you're stuck with an "-ichthys" on a group that includes tetrapods isn't a cladistic issue, really. It's simply the conventional rules of nomenclatural priority, as far as I can tell. There has never been a convention in the history of modern taxonomy that really required etymologies to reflect taxonomic views themselves (except in particular standardized suffixes for ranks). Should we change the name of a valid taxon such as Basilosaurus because it is not a squamate, let alone even a reptile? Once we start with one name, we have a whole new (and, as far as I'm concened, useless) enterprise of re-naming things simply because people are uncomfortable with a particular Latin epithet. When we took on a standard scientific nomenclature and decided to have it in Latin, we did so for a reason: that vernacular terms would be neutralized. In other words: by using a common scientific nomenclature, we basically agree that the etymologies are meaningless. If I am not mistaken, the ICZN states that the only conditions are a pronouncable string of standard Latin letters, and no facetious names. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Braz (talk • contribs) 16:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Methinks one problem is that the definition on the article is unsourced, and we're trying to come up with our own definition here (original research and all that); we need a sourced definition. Xenophon777 (talk) 16:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I made some adjustments on the first paragraph, trying to insist on this aspect. Maybe, it even needs to be moved to the introduction, or into a new paragraph, such as "Definition of a fish". ? Naldo 911 (talk) 20:39, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Picture of shark egg

The third picture in Reproductive method titled "Egg of shark (?)" (File:Oeufs002b,55.png) is indeed a shark egg, more specifically the eggcase of a Bullhead shark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullhead_shark) like the Horn shark (Heterodontus francisci) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_shark#Life_history) Thorke (talk) 20:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC) Sweet. I was also wondering what was with the question mark.Still, it should be removed.As in the question mark, not the image.

I've edited the image caption to identify the genus of shark. mgiganteus1 (talk) 13:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Concerning paraphyly

Paraphyly does not absolutely prevent a Linnaean rank as polyphyly (no single common ancestor included) does. In fact, ANY taxon with a long enough fossil range for younger taxa to have diverged from it is arguably paraphyletic. For example, the common ancestor of the Kingdom Animalia (and therefore the very first animal) was a member of the Subkingdom Parazoa and Phylum Porifera. The Phylum Placozoa diverged from the Phylum Porifera and is excluded from it. The common ancestor within the Phylum Parazoa is ultimately also an ancestor of the common ancestor within the Phylum Placozoa, and although this makes the Phylum Porifera paraphyletic, it does not negate it as a formal taxon. The same can be said for the Subkingdom Parazoa as a whole, for the Subkingdom Eumetazoa diverged from it.

Within the Subkingdom Eumetazoa, Superphylum Deuterostoma, Phylum Chordata, and Subphylum Vertebra, why would the same not apply to a Superclass Pisces (and I will point out that it would be a SUPERclass, not a class; the Classes Actinoptyrigii and Chondrichthyes among others are separate at class level) after the Superclass Tetrapoda diverged from it?

Of course, considering that a single bacterial species (which itself probably started with a single first cell, which I personally like to call "the Unicellular Adam") first arose from the primordial soup at end of the Eoarchean Era and start of the Paleoarchean Era (within the Archean Eon), the biosphere as a whole is actually a giant monophyletic clade. Getting back to the Superclass Pisces, although it has an excluded group (and for another example so does the still formally accepted Class Reptilia, from which the Classes Aves and Mammalia both diverged), the fact remains that all fish share a common ancestor. So, in short, why would the taxon not have the license that the also paraphyletic Domain Bacteria (which excludes the Domains Archea and Eukarya that diverged from it), Class Reptilia, Subkingdom Parazoa, and Phylum Porifera all have?

All taxa did diverge from other taxa, after all, with the exception of the Domain Bacteria and (within it) an extinct kingdom of bacteria that only used single-stranded RNA (and its ancestral phylum, class, order, family, genus, and the very first species). So, what is the reason for the inconsistency in whether or not a taxon from which other taxa have diverged is "removed from formal classification" for its paraphyly? -The Mysterious El Willstro 71.181.140.237 (talk) 06:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Plural

Fish is used either as singular noun or to describe a group of specimens from a single species.

Since when? I've never heard of the "single species" constraint before. So if I have three guppies and five trout, what do I have eight of - fish, fishes or something else entirely? -- Smjg (talk) 17:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I've re-worded it a bit. Is it clearer now? Chrisrus (talk) 20:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You have 8 fishes. The same 'rule' applies to fruit. As in 1 fruit, many fruit, many fruits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.250.5.248 (talk) 05:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I have changed it back, as it correctly described the use among pro's (ichthyologists) and fitted what the associated reference supports. If changing, please make sure the ref. supports the new version, or provide a new high quality ref. that does. • Rabo³ • 21:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Almost All Fish Are Not Vertebrates

The first line reads, in part: "FISH SUCK BUTT!..." but, if you read Wikipedia's own definition of vertebrate, only bony fish (Osteichthyes), sharks, and a very few other fish are considered vertebrate fish. The first line should read: A fish is any acquatic invertebrate animal (except bony fish, sharks, and a few other types of fish)... and the distinction between invertebrate fish and vertebrate fish would be much clearer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FooeyDooey837 (talk • contribs) 01:37, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The vast majority are certainly vertebrates by all definitions, i.e. using invertebrate as a primary definition is misleading, as only a very small percentage (<1%; Hyperotreti and alike) lack a vertebrate, and even they have traditionally been included within Vertebrata (as also noted in the classification section in Vertebrate). That said, there is an issue over this small number of species without a vertebrate, and it would be better if this could be incorporated into the lead of the fish article. Cannot think of a "smooth" way of doing it right now, but if I remember I'll get back on it later. • Rabo³ • 22:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Our problem, I believe, is in the article vertebrate. When it says that "bony fish" are vertebrates it probably meant "all fish with bones", but it links to a particular group called the "bony fish". That's where the fix should probably be done. DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:36, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Bony fish redirects to Osteichthyes, which is correct. This superclass alone includes the vast majority of all fishes (more than 95% of all fishes are members of this superclass). • Rabo³ • 22:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

What about fish with lungs, like lungfish? The first sentence seems to state that fish must have gills. Are fish not "all vertebrate animals that developed in the sea?" Piepants (talk) 17:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC)Piepants

Number of species

At 31,500 species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any other class of vertebrates.

This seems to me to presuppose that we know of every species. Perhaps "31,500 known species" would be more suiting. Also, the reference now says 31,600, which I think supports that point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.21.15 (talk) 02:14, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Outdated evolutionary view of continual gradation (animation)

If this is outdated, why is it in the article? Isn't there a "timeline/history of evolutionary theory" article it could go in? Totnesmartin (talk) 19:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Text on Evolution of Fishes can be improved with the following:

Evolutionary history

Vertebrates originated about 525 million years ago during the Cambrian Explosion, a singular event in earth history during which many groups of multicellular organisms first appear in the fossil record and underwent rapid evolutionary radiations. The earliest known vertebrates (or craniates) are believed to be Myllokunmingia fengjiaoa and Haikouichthys ercaicunensis from the Chengjiang fauna, found near the city of Kunming, in Yunnan Province, China. The first vertebrates with a hinged lower jaw (gnathostomes) appeared in the Ordovician Period, and became common in the Devonian Period, often known as the "Age of Fishes". A total of about 13 distinct vertebrate lineages had emerged by the end of the Ordovician Period (445 million years ago = Ma), of which only four survived to the present (Figure 1); Hyperoartia (lampreys), Chondrichthys (chimaeras and elasmobranch sharks and rays), Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods), and Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes).

Most of the early vertebrate lineages lacked a lower jaw (mandible), including Pteraspidomorphi, Thelodonti, Anaspidae, Galeaspida, Pituriaspida, Osteostraci, and Fucrcacuadiformes. Paleozoic vertebrates with dermal armor and lacking jaws were formerly referred to as "ostracoderms", a heterogeneous and non-monophyletic assemblage of jawless fishes. The relationships among these long extinct vertebrate groups is an active area of research, but recent studies suggest that most if not all were more closely related to gnathostomes than to lampreys. Another of these early vertebrate groups were jawed-fishes called placoderms that attained substantial diversity during the Devonian. Placoderms ranged in size from the miniature antiarch Yunnanolepis at 5 cm to the giant arthrodire Dunkleosteus that grew to more than 8 meters. All the other vertebrate lineages subsequently became extinct, mostly during a global mass extinction event that occurred near the end of the Devonian Period (about 364 Ma), although one group of early gnathostomes, the so-called “spiny-sharks” (Acanthodii) survived into the Permian Period (to about 270 Ma). After the Devonian three major vertebrate groups dominate aquatic systems globally; Chondrichthys, Sarcopterygii and Actinopterygii (Figure 2). The Devonian also saw the rise of the first land vertebrates from within the Sarcopterygii: the Tetrapoda. Tetrapods with a hard-shelled egg and an amniotic membrane (amniotes) appeared later in the Carboniferous period (c. 365 -375 Ma).

The fossil record of fishes from throughout the Phanerozoic shows that fish diversity is bimodal in time. A lower diversity plateau was reached in the middle Paleozoic, from the Silurian to Carboniferous (c. 400 - 300 Ma), with 65 families in the Middle Devonian (377 Ma). A higher diversity plateau was reached in the Cenozoic, from the Eocene to the Recent, with 166 fish families known from the Eocene, 294 families from the Plio-Pleistocene, and 515 families recognized in the Recent. Early Paleozoic (Silurian-Devonian) fish faunas were diverse at a high taxonomic level, with at least eight non-gnathostome clades, and dominance (> 40% in at least one time interval) by pteraspidomorphs (peak of 15 families in the Silurian at about 411 Ma), placoderms (peak of 25 families in Middle Devonian, 381 Ma) and chondrichthyans (peak of 23 families in the Upper Carboniferous, 311 Ma). After the Devonian, fish faunas are dominated by just three clades; sarcopterygians (peak of 13 families in the Late Devonian 367 Ma), Chondrichthyans (peak of 42 families) in the Miocene, and actinopterygians (peak of 250 families in the Plio-Pleistocene). Actinopterygians, especially teleosts, greatly dominated (> 80%) fish family diversity since at least the Eocene (c. 50 Ma), with maximum diversity in the Recent (250 families known from fossils, 515 families known from living forms).

Vertebrate genome evolution

The nuclear genome is the full compliment of coding genes and non-coding regulatory DNA that occurs on all the chromosomes. Vertebrate genomes range in size from that of the puffer fish Tetraodon nigroviridis (Actinopterygii) with about 385 million nucleotide base pairs (0.385 gigabases, GB) to the African lungfish Protopterus aethiopicus (Sarcopterygii) with about 130 GB. Humans have a fairly typical vertebrate genome; the haploid human genome is about 3.2 GB with about 23,000 protein-coding genes. About 1.5% of the human genome codes for proteins, while the rest consists of non-coding RNA genes, regulatory sequences, introns, pseudogenes (non-functioning gene copies) and (controversially) "junk" DNA. The relatively large and complex vertebrate genome was created in part by multiple rounds of whole genome duplication events in the lineages leading to modern chordates and craniates, again in ancestral gnathostomes, and again in teleosts. These large-scale genomic events contributed greatly to the evolutionary success of vertebrate lineages by providing multiple functional copies of the genes and gene networks used in all aspects of vertebrate tissue development and cellular function.

Regional diversity

Like most groups of organisms on earth, vertebrates exhibit strong latitudinal species gradients with many more species and higher taxa inhabiting warm humid environments at low latitudes (near the equator) than the cold and dry conditions at high latitudes (near the poles). Latitudinal species gradient are observed in both marine and terrestrial vertebrates, in both the Old and New Worlds, and for all the major groups; i.e., those with many species; elasmobranchs (sharks and rays), teleosts (the largest group of bony fishes), anurans (frogs), squamates (lizards and snakes) and eutherian (placental) mammals. Among marine fishes regional species richness is highest in the Indo-West Pacific, a broad band of shallow tropical seas, volcanic islands and coral reefs that extends from the Red Sea to French Polynesia centered on the Indonesian and Philippine archipelago from where over 10,000 fish species are known. Regional species richness for continental fishes is centered the humid Neotropics, including about 6,000 species endemic to freshwaters of the Amazon and Orinoco Basins and adjacent river systems of northern South America and Central America. Patterns of regional diversity for terrestrial vertebrates are covered separately in their entries.

References

Forey, P. L. (1984). Yet more reflections on agnathan-gnathostome relationships. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 4, 330-343.

Forey, P. L., and Janvier, P. (1993). Agnathans and the origin of jawed vertebrates. Nature, 361, 129-134.

Forey, P. L., and Janvier, P. (1994). Evolution of the early vertebrates. American Scientist, 82, 554-565.

Hardisty, M. W. (1982). Lampreys and hagfishes: Analysis of cyclostome relationships. In The Biology of Lampreys, (ed. M. W. Hardisty and I. C. Potter), Vol.4B, pp. 165-259. Academic Press, London.

Janvier, P. (1993). Patterns of diversity in the skull of jawless fishes. In The skull (ed. J. Hanken and B. K. Hall), Vol. 2, pp. 131-188. The University of Chicago Press.

Janvier, P. (1996a). Early vertebrates. Oxford Monographs in Geology and Geophysics, 33, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Janvier, P. (1996b). The dawn of the vertebrates: characters versus common ascent in current vertebrate phylogenies. Palaeontology, 39, 259-287.

Long, J. A. (1996) The Rise of Fishes: 500 Million Years of Evolution Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Løvtrup, S. (1977). The Phylogeny of Vertebrata. Wiley, New York.

Romer, A. S. (1949): The Vertebrate Body. W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia. (2nd ed. 1955; 3rd ed. 1962; 4th ed. 1970)

Stensiö, E. A. (1927). The Devonian and Downtonian vertebrates of Spitsbergen. 1. Family Cephalaspidae. Skrifter om Svalbard og Ishavet, 12, 1-391.

22:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC) James Albert Aug15, 2011

Matya

In this article, it describes Matsya as a merman. I'm not Hindu, but from what I understand, Vishnu's first incarnation was a fish, not a merman. That picture is simply showing that fish to be Vishnu incarnate. I would change it, but I don't know for sure. Could someone who is actually hindu or understands this stuff or both tell me what is the truth? --DidgeGuy (talk) 19:13, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

News

Maybe of interest to someone http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8063875/New-species-of-fish-found-four-and-a-half-miles-under-the-sea.html Merlin-UK (talk) 05:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

way to niche for this article--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 22:23, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Where are the hagfish?

The taxonomy section does not list hagfish. It seems like it should. I came to the article curious about how hagfish, lampreys and coelacanths were related to fish in general or the bony fish in particular and it was in the taxonomy section that I expected to find at least some of the answer.

In doing some research outside the fish article it seems there are two theories.

• The hagfish are a basal group to the lampreys and the Gnathostomata
• The lampreys and the hagfish form a natural group, the cyclostomata, which is a sister group of the Gnathostomata

This seems like it is important enough information that it should be mentioned in the taxonomy section or at a minimum a link to the Cyclostomata article should be provided which discusses the issue in more detail. Based on what seems like the most recent studies, the old idea that the hagfish and the lampreys form a natural group was probably right and the idea that lampreys were more closely related to the Gnathostomata than hagfish was probably wrong.

If there was agreement on the above I would like to edit the taxonomy section a little bit to include this information. If people preferred I would list my proposed edits here before changing the article. --Davefoc (talk) 07:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I modified the taxonomy section to include a brief note about the position of the hagfish in Chordata phylum. --Davefoc (talk) 19:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The taxonomy presented in this articele doesn't feel right - at least from the evolutionary point of view. Namely, I don't see how a single group can exist containing both Agnatha which belong to Cyclostomata and the members of the Gnathostomata together - Gnathostomata are an older group of vertebrates, from which the first Gnathostomates first evolved. I believe the taxonomy should separately have the groups Cyclostomata and Gnathostomata, and the fish should be only under Gnathostomata. Pushing Agnatha in the Fish group disturbs that evolutionary order... --Arny (talk) 22:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request from 77.97.154.137, 25 January 2011

{{edit semi-protected}}

77.97.154.137 (talk) 18:27, 25 January 2011 (UTC) hannah moghul is the new type of fish

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. →♠Gƒoley↔Four♣← 22:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC) fish taste good with chips because they go together like cheese and chips

List of fishes by population

I was wondering which species were the most populous; a list, or an explanation that we don't know, would be interesting additions to the article. -- Beland (talk) 16:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Time

The article says that fish appeared in the Ordovician. Isn't this inaccurate? What about Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia? 70.80.215.121 (talk) 20:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)Adam70.80.215.121 (talk) 20:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

How do you know if the fish is male or female

My brother won one gold fish at the fair last night and they gave us a free one

You are asking about sexing goldfish. It is hard to do and requires mature specimens, which you won't get unless they are reared in large tanks or under actual pond conditions. If you are worried about names, pick what you like, the fish won't care. If you are worried about breeding find some better on-line support group, there are plenty of enthusiasts. But guppies are much more fun if you want to breed in a small tank, and more colorful. μηδείς (talk) 05:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect note

Note 32 has the incorrect website. The website is http://www.coloradotu.org/do-fish-feel-pain/ Not http://www.coloradotu.org/do-fish-feel-pain.htm Can someone correct the problem? Neosiber (talk) 23:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks :) --Epipelagic (talk) 03:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Endotherms/Poikilotherms/Endotherms

The Fish article states "Most fish are "cold-blooded", or ectothermic", this seems to infer that some fish are Poikilotherms or possibly Endotherms. Does anyone know which fish are Poikilotherms/Endotherms? Best Regards. DynamoDegsy (talk) 11:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Tuna in general but blue fin tuna in particular thermoregulate. The white shark is also reputed to thermoregulate.--Davefoc (talk) 08:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I was actually joining talk just because of this issue. I knwo it cites tuna and sharks, but think the general consensus now is that fish are endothermic. Although their body temperatures are highly influences by their environment, it seems that all fish produce body heat. Larger fish would obviously have a greater temperature delta due to differences in mass to surface area of the fish, but I think the current endothermic theory applies to most species these days. I don't have references, sorry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.203.175.175 (talk) 19:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Number of species in regards to salinity

Approximately 41% of all species of (present day) fish are freshwater fish. However, I'm having a hard time finding valid data regarding % of species living in sea- and brackish waters. Any good source about this would be welcome. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 21:14, 25 February 2013 (UTC).

Helpful

It helped me with the fish names! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fishlover2 (talk • contribs) 17:52, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Skeleton evolution

This article and the "prehistoric fish" article both neglect to discuss the evolution of the internal skeleton of fish. Is this something that an editor here can add to this article? Not my area. -Fjozk (talk) 06:56, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The article clearly misses the skeleton in the organs section. 79.168.9.101 (talk) 22:21, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Fish in the old sense?

Is it worth mentioning somewhere that the word "fish" was previously also applied to many other kinds of animals that lived in water, and that the old usage still shows in names such as "starfish" , "crayfish" and so on? I ask because that is directly relevant to the article List of fish in the River Trent and maybe other articles too. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 14:42, 1 March 2014 (UTC) p.s watch the octonauts and their love fish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.13.37 (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 April 2014

107.178.39.130 (talk) 04:41, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to any article. - Arjayay (talk) 07:20, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Behaviour section

This article is missing a huge section, i.e. the Behaviour of fish. Take a look at the Bird article for comparison. This has several subsections under "Behaviour" many of which could be directly applied here (I'm not sure about "feather care"). I am prepared to start this section but because this is already a "good article", reluctant to make what will be a large change without discussing first.__DrChrissy (talk) 11:16, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The article is long overdue for restructuring, and a section on Behaviour seems appropriate. I don't think we have to make a big production out of it, and we can just incrementally change things over time. But first, I'd like to see this current discussion about an animal MOS run it's course. --Epipelagic (talk) 16:39, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Yep - sure thing. Apologies if I have diverted attention.__DrChrissy (talk) 18:19, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Fish behavior would be a huge topic, worthy of an overview article itself, as seen in the many sub-topics already listed Template:Diversity_of_fish (see Reproduction, Locomotion, and Other behaviors). Much of the information is already on Wikipedia, and any effort to organize it into a single overview article with summary style is commended. In the mean time, a series of "See also" or "Main article" hatnotes might be a good temporary fix. In fact, following summary style, Fish could probably be consolidated a bit by deferring more text to the appropriate sub-articles. --Animalparty-- (talk) 22:56, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Agree needs a behaviour section. as 36 kb of prose, so still some room for expansion before it needs carving up. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:19, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Diversity section

Seems a bit nebulous and I think could be restructured. The first para could go in taxonomy, the second in etymology (after a segement on hte derivation of the word "fish"), the third is on homeothermy (as well as part of the fourth), last para is habitat and there is a bit left on size...not sure where that could go. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:23, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

fish or fishes

Is there a scientific/ichthyological difference between "fish" as in "ray-finned fish" and "fishes" as in "lobe-finned fishes"? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 19:34, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if there is a scientific difference, but they can both be plural which is a little confusing. Fishes also means the act of fishing. I think Fish is the appropriate title tho (i'm assuming that is where you were going with this comment)Meatsgains (talk) 18:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

See fish or fishes --Epipelagic (talk) 22:20, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Though often used interchangeably, these words have different meanings. Fish is used either as singular noun or to describe a group of specimens from a single species. Fishes describes a group of different species.

This strikes me as wrong. For as long as I've heard of any semantic distinction between the two plurals, I've understood it to be one of whether you're counting the individual animals (fish) or the species of them (fishes). Quite a different matter from whether the individual animals you're counting are from one species or several, which is what this is basically saying.

Can anyone enlighten on what exactly the cited book does say? If it is to this effect, then there is a contradiction between different sources – in which case, how do we know which to believe? — Smjg (talk) 00:51, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• As a point of information, what the the cited book Diversity of fishes says is:

By convention, "fish" refers to one or more individuals of a single species. "Fishes" is used when discussing more than one species, regardless of the number of individuals involved. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:28, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The entry is correct in it's current form. Here's another source from perhaps the most prominent fisheries scientist of our time: Pauly, Daniel (2004) Darwin's Fishes: An Encyclopedia of Ichthyology, Ecology, and Evolution page 77, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139451819.

See also: Nelson, Joseph S and Paetz, Martin Joseph (1992) The Fishes of Alberta page 400, University of Alberta. ISBN 9780888642363. --Epipelagic (talk) 01:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. In this case, I wonder why there are many sources claiming that "fishes" are distinct species of fish. Once upon a time there was an example statement here on WP: "There are twelve fish in this aquarium, representing five fishes." It must have been on a different page since I can't find the talk page discussion that ensued about it. A Google search brings up quite a lot of instances including this one from a fishery management wiki.

Indeed, I had imagined that many fish and chip shops (and to some extent other businesses) can make a claim of "We have three fishes available: cod, haddock and plaice". Indeed, for all I know some probably do claim it on the basis of the explanations that are out there.

Now I'm made to wonder: If you have multiple species of fish in an aquarium, how are you meant to answer if somebody asks "How many fish do you have?" - do you say "none" since you have fishes not fish, or do you give the number of individuals of whatever species is most abundant? — Smjg (talk) 14:10, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Your question "How many fish do you have?" in an aquarium with multiple species, is ambiguous. You would have to clarify the question by qualifying it, as in: "How many individual fish do you have altogether?" or "How many individual fish do you have in your most/least abundant fish species?" The aquarium example from the fishery management wiki is a good one, and perhaps it would make things clearer if we added it to the article. --Epipelagic (talk) 19:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

If we merely added it, it would make the article contradict itself. But if we can add it and in doing so explicitly address the semantic dispute, then maybe it would improve matters. — Smjg (talk) 19:17, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Would you please explain what your semantic issue is. Are you saying you find the current version of the text semantically ambiguous? As a mathematician, are you thinking of the definition from a set theoretic view? In that case it would be defining fish as a set of specimens from a single species and fishes as a set of different species. The number of fish or fishes would then be the cardinal number of the relevant set. In that case there is an ambiguity in the definition of fishes, which should be defined instead as a set of different species sets, that is, as a set of fish. But I think many readers would find that approach more confusing. The current text has been here for long time, and I haven't thought of it before as being particularly a problem, though I have thought it could be clearer. Here is a 2006 version of the text, a version which had a couple of specific examples which someone has unhelpfully removed. There are clearer definitions available in reliable sources, but we would need to either quote them or reword them to avoid plagiarism. Probably the definition given by Nelson (1992) would be the most definitive. We could either directly quote this definition:

The singular "fish" is appropriately used when talking about any number of individuals of the same species while the plural "fishes" is used when discussing individuals of two or more species.

or reword it it a manner you find satisfactory. And then further clarify the distinction with specific examples. What do you think? --Epipelagic (talk) 22:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

This is what I have been explaining for the last few days. If you're having trouble understanding, let's look at the three sets of definitions side by side:

	Set A	Set B	Set C
Fish are...	Individual organisms, whether of one piscine species or multiple	Individual organisms of a single piscine species	Individual organisms of a single piscine species
Fishes are...	Distinct piscine species	Distinct piscine species	Individual organisms of multiple piscine species
Supported by	Many hits from this Google search An even older version of the Fish article	The old version of the Fish article you cited	Current version of the Fish article [6] [7]

Set B is problematic in that it leaves no easy way to refer to individual organisms of multiple piscine species. While set C leaves neither plural referring to a count of distinct piscine species, this isn't so much of a problem because we can use "piscine species" or "fish species" for this. Still, set A is the one I had understood it to be after seeing it previously on WP.

A further complication is that different national varieties of English may use the terms in different ways. For this reason, we might need a good set of sources coming from different parts of the world.

A correct version of the Fish vs fishes section would either:

• State one of these sets of definitions (or another that I haven't heard of) as being the correct terminology, and give an authoritative source to back it up. But given the conflicting sources, how do we know which sources are authoritative?
• State one of the sets of definitions as the correct one, but also refer to the other sets of definitions as being widespread misunderstandings. Again, we would need authoritative sources on which is the correct set of definitions.
• Give all three sets of definitions (or sets A and C, if we can't find any real source for B) in such a way as to explicitly address the terminological dispute.

— Smjg (talk) 10:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Thinking about it now, my inclination would be to handle it in a similar way to what has been done on Aging in dogs. Something like:

While the plurals "fish" and "fishes" are often used interchangeably, strictly speaking there is a distinction between the two. However, there are at least two sets of definitions in use:

• According to some writers, fish are individual piscine organisms, whereas fishes are distinct piscine species. By these definitions, an aquarium may contain twelve fish (i.e. twelve individual animals) but at the same time only five fishes (i.e. five species of fish).
• The other set of definitions to be found in the literature considers both plural forms to denote a number of individual piscine organisms, but uses fish if they are all of the same species and fishes if they are of varied species.

This would then be followed by commentary on which is correct, if we can consider the sources that we're using to back our claims to be reliable. Since it's a point of contention, probably better than stating in a matter-of-fact way that a particular set is correct we should probably express it in terms of who considers which definitions to be correct. — Smjg (talk) 20:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry but this is spiralling out of proportion. You are making up problems that are not really there, and you are not supporting your views with reliable sources. Random hits from Google web searches and different versions of the Fish article are not reliable sources. The only sources in your table that are authoritative are the ones in the last column. Those are the ones I gave you. There are no "conflicting sources", not reliable ones at any rate.

If you want to see how fish and fishes are actually used in the research literature, you can find plenty of examples here. You have been given three reliable sources. One is from Joseph S. Nelson, perhaps the most authoritative fish taxonomist of our time, one from Daniel Pauly, perhaps the most prominent fisheries scientist of our time, and one from The diversity of fishes, perhaps the most widely used undergraduate textbook on fish of our time. Those are definitive sources.

I have rewritten the section, included some examples, and removed your tag. If you want to continue with your dispute you can ask for a third opinion or take the matter to dispute resolution. I don't want to spend more time on this unless the discussion revolves around reliable sources. --Epipelagic (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

The answer is only FISH

Epipelagic (talk) has it wrong and so do the cited links. As the links are Google (UK) searches and Wikipedia itself (see WP:NOR, WP:PRIMARY) they are invalid as points of discussion. You cannot use Wikipedia as a place of primary information. The term for "fish" is and always will be "fish". Multiple or one, species or singular, proper English grammar is "fish". What confuses people is the term "fishes" is a proper word. Only, it is the verb (to fish) that gets this distinction.

"Watch as Bob fishes for compliments." - That is your example of the ONLY way that you can use "Fishes" properly. It is a present tense (or near present tense) verb. 134.240.241.240 (talk) 18:57, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Scientific classification : Class

Why is the "proposed class" of Craniata listed but not the two accepted classes of Osteichthye and Chondrichthye? Either the Craniata entry should be listed as being "proposed" TOGETHER WITH the two current Classes, OR Craniata should be deleted from the scientific classification box. LookingGlass (talk) 14:35, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

It was believed that fish is the first animal with backbone, and the most diverse vertebrate of all the animal family?

[1]interesting-facts-about-fish-you-need-to-know/c17jj/5519912f0cf21933cd239e3f Interesting facts about fish Magabby22 (talk) 18:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Neither is that reliable ref nor is the interrogative heading correct. Modern fish are certainly descendants of the earliest vertebrates, but then so is every other vertebrate, ourselves included. I am unclear what you intend by the above message, can you clarify please ?  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   18:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

First warm blooded fish

An amazing fish has been found which can live in depths of oceans and is warm blooded. It circulates the blood throughout its body and can live in depth. Read more complete information here:

http://phys.org/news/2015-05-reveals-warm-blooded-fish.html

MansourJE (talk) 08:30 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The opah has been confirmed as a truly endothermic fish. It makes sense to link to opah with a brief explanation of this in the Homeothermy section.

PszNicx (talk) 05:55, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

References

fish that live in peculiar parts of the body of another fsh

i wuld like to know the name of he particular species of fish or parasite that lives in the anus of certain types of larger fish and their types of speces — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.20.14.83 (talk) 11:37, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Taxobox vs infobox

Since "fish" isn't a taxonomic term, should the taxobox be replaced with an infobox?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:58, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

The article doesn't use a taxobox, it uses paraphyletic group --Epipelagic (talk) 21:57, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Sensory organ

Hi,
Under "Sensory organs" it is mentioned that e.g. sharks can spot e/m fields with a special organ. Why not either mention the organ by name or link to its page?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini
Also, is this article protected? Couldn't see any "edit" tab. If so, sorry to disturb :)
T88.89.5.214 (talk) 23:19, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Not a great opening sentence.

A fish is any member of a group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. To be honest, this is not a great sentence with which to start the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.148.9.204 (talk) 22:04, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Well please suggest one you consider is better. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:30, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

I can't be sure what the above commenter's problem with the opening sentence was, but I think this sentence is better: "A fish is any gill-bearing acquatic craniate animal that lacks limbs with digits". "Any member of a group consisting of all animals with these properties" is a really clunky way of saying "any animal these properties" 130.225.188.33 (talk) 13:53, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I've made the change. --Epipelagic (talk) 16:55, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Pic deleted

I have added a picture of fish Market of bengali people. But without giving any reason this pic was removed. My question is why? Here I'm posting the pic :

File:Fish market of Bengali.jpg

Fish Market of Bengali people's , Agartala, India

শক্তিশেল (talk) 19:02, 7 February 2018 (UTC) শক্তিশেল (talk) 19:02, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

User:Mean_as_custard, please enlighten me why you removed the picture. Thanks. শক্তিশেল (talk) 19:08, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

The article is about the aquatic creature, nothing to do with markets. . . Mean as custard (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

How many?

How many "fish" are estimated to exist? In: Oceans? Lakes? Rivers? I tried to find the answer the first question, and got only so far; it might be of interest. Hopefully they aren't counting plankton (kidding), or micro-fishes, lol. Misty MH (talk) 05:04, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

How many valid species of fish are there ?. You can get subdivisions for marine or so on using this page or the search function (start here).  Jts1882 | talk  20:49, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Wrong fish in hadal zone

The lead, 5th paragraph, says:

"... even hadal depths of the deepest oceans (e.g., gulpers and anglerfish)..."

Neither gulpers nor anglerfish have ever been recorded in the hadal zone. Both families are primarily bathyal, although some species range into the abyssal zone. The few families that have been recorded in the hadal zone are listed in this article (c. 3/5 down the page). The primary and generally dominant family are the snailfish. The next best example would be cusk-eel. The remaining families known from the hadal zone would be less suitable as examples, either because it's only a single species from the family (grenadiers), they're marginal in the zone (hadal limit is disputed, 6000 m or 6500 m) or their record is questionable/abnormal (pearlfish). 62.107.211.90 (talk) 20:57, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

"Sick fish" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Sick fish. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 August 8#Sick fish until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 12:47, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): D.valdez32.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there fish that can walk?

There is, there are so many species of fish, and weird fish, there is so much more fish that we can discover!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richieboiagve (talk • contribs) 15:38, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

excluding tetra pods, mudskippers, rock hoper blennies and others can achieve terrestrial locomotion, "walking" in the sense of using legs in in this case fins is not a likelihood as legs are fairly advanced/ specialized Realfakebezalbob (talk) 22:08, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

"Fish proteins" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Fish proteins and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 1#Fish proteins until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 01:26, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

The reverse?

The following sentence is confusing: "The first ancestors of fish may have kept the larval form into adulthood (as some sea squirts do today), although perhaps the reverse is the case." What is the reverse? "The last progeny of fish may not have gotten rid of the adult form into larvahood"? Citizen127 (talk) 01:48, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I just came here to day the same thing. Fish may be ancestors of the first organisms to keep larval form? Lol Bernardo.bb (talk) 21:47, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

"The first ancestors of fish may have kept the larval form" implies that they may not have. I'm assuming that's the intention in "although perhaps the reverse is the case," so it's redundant, unnecessary, and confusing. Citizen127 (talk) 07:44, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Why are conodonts excluded?

I can't find any authoritative sources either specifically describing conodonts are being fish or as being excluded from the definition of fish, but it would seem that if they are cladistically included within crown vertebrates then there would be no reason to not regard them as fish. Geobica (talk) 13:10, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Is there even a recent formal definition of fish? It seems now to be used as an informal term for craniates that aren't tetrapods. The question is whether conodonts are craniates. If they are classified as vertebrates (as in the cladogram in Conodont), then I think they would generally be considered fish. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to have universal agreement.

According to Donoghue et al (2000) and Sweet & Donoghue (2001) the question had finally been settled and conodonts, at least euconodonts, were vertebrates, stem-Gnathostomata no less. However, the discussion in Turner et al (2010, pdf) is equally adamant they are neither vertebrates nor craniates. This is the position followed in Fishes of the World (5th edition), where they are placed as a subphylum of chordates, one of four along with tunicates, lancelets and craniates. Here they would be placed outside the agnathan fish grade. Yet we also have a recent work where they are included in vertebrates (Miyashita et al 2019), among the jawless fish. Until their classification is settled there seems no simple answer. FotW5 refer to them as "eel-like animals" and I didn't see them referred to as fish in any of those works where they are considered vertebrates. The taxobox says they are traditionally excluded, which seems accurate. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:37, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

None of these sources actually state that they're excluded from the definition of fish though, it just doesn't include them, presumably because of the uncertainty of whether they're vertebrates. This still implies that calling them fish is a matter of their taxonomic classification, so writing them as excluded is unnecessary. I'd say that to state that they're excluded there should be a source that gives a positive statement of that, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Additionally, I can find quite a few sources online that refer to conodonts as fish, such as this article which refers to them as "naked agnathan fishes", and The Composition of Conodonts, which calls them "probably fish", implying that their classification as fish is dependent on their classification as vertebrates, in which case they aren't to be excluded no matter what. Geobica (talk) 21:39, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 November 2022

Similar to whale: Add that’s Fish is an informal name in it’s infobox? 2601:183:4A80:E570:656C:9BB1:E47D:6EA7 (talk) 20:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

But Fish is not an informal classification the way Whale is. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:55, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Fish

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Strong consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR from 2007, reassesed in 2008. Very important article in a poor state - almost half of the text in unsourced, f.e. half of Etymology, whole Evolution, half of Taxonomy, parts of Diversity, Anatomy and physiology, Muscular system, half of Reproductive system, etc.

Other problems - underdeveloped sections - f.e. Scales, Emotion, and Fishkeeping.

Tags present: dubious – discuss. Article is probably outdated: Conservation section starts with The 2006 IUCN Red List names 1,173 fish species that are threatened with extinction - it's 17 years ago!

I don't usually edit biology articles, so will ping some users who are good in it (hope it's ok, no pressure of course, but would be great to know your opinion): @LittleJerry:, @Chiswick Chap:, @Casliber:

Artem.G (talk) 16:43, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Delist Damn this article is bad. I'm going to preemptively put a delist. Though, if major work on this article begins then consider this vote null until the major work is done. Onegreatjoke (talk) 18:39, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Delist per nom, unless serious effort is made to fix the article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:15, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Delist choppy paras, unsourced text etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:38, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Delist, extensive work needed exceeding the reasonable scope of GAR. CMD (talk) 07:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The two animal species known to have blue colouring

One of the captions in the article says:

The psychedelic mandarin dragonet is one of only two animal species known to have blue colouring because of cellular pigment.

I interpreted this as: - There are only two animal species to have a blue appearance - This particular dragonet is blue because of cellular pigment

But that's obviously false as many more species are blue. Guinea fowls, peacocks and surgeon fish come to mind. So apparently the cellular pigment coloring the mandarin dragonet makes it special. But the article is about fish, not about cellular pigmentation and as such, the casual reader may not know what cellular pigmentation is ("aren't all skins made out of cells and aren't all skin colors created by pigments?"). Not being familiar with the topic at all (and stumbling upon the fish article because it's shown as an example on the new design announcement), I wonder how the text could be improved to feature the mandarin dragonet without causing confusion. LongWindingRoad (talk) 10:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Good question. The cited paper doesn't say only two animal species have a blue appearance. In the abstract they attribute the blue of other animals to interference phenonomena. The paper describes the discovery of blue chromatophores (cells with blue pigments) in two species of fish. They claim that this was the first time that such a pigmented cell had been found in poikilothermic vertebrates. Other previously know chromatophores are "primarily responsible for the dark, red, yellow, whitish and iridescent tones of the skin". The fact they found it in two types of fish doesn't mean they are the only two species. And it's not clear how general it is for animals that are not poikilothermic vertebrates, e.g. there are blue corals, blue insects (butterflies, dragonflies, beetles) and, as you point out, blues in some birds. Are none of these due to a blue pigment?

I did a quick google search and found an article on peacocks and colouration: If you go looking for the blue in a peacock's feathers, you won't find it. Apparently the peacock doesn't contain a blue pigment, but gets the colour because the peacock’s tail feathers "contain microscopic ridges, which interfere with light, causing some wavelengths to cancel each other out, and others to be amplified, resulting in the birds’ signature iridescent blue color". They also point out that plants are green because that is the one colour they don't have pigments to absorb the light and consequently the green light is reflected. Thus other animals might be blue because they reflect it preferentially or due to interference phenomena.

I think a simple rewording to state what was observed without generalisation might be sufficient. I'll give it a try. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

This is just confusing

"Tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well."

I'm sure no one uses the word "fish" this way; everyone uses "vertebrate". Why would an article say something like this?? Georgia guy (talk) 11:50, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

It is made very clear in that section (including the very next sentence) that this is not common usage. Following strict cladistics in assigning taxa to everyday categories would force some usages that might seem very odd to us indeed. However, that does not make the statement untrue, and this high-level taxon article is where to put it. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:58, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

It is not common usage, but is it used by some strict scientists?? Georgia guy (talk) 12:20, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

"Hamster = fish" (or rather, jawed fish) is as correct as "bird = dinosaur"; the latter is being used quite a lot these days, the former, not so much. No difference in correctness though, and not a reason for us the mention the one but not the other. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:49, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

For this reason, some scientists say "non-avian dinosaur" to mean dinosaur that's not a bird. But no one uses "non-tetrapodic fish" in a similar way. Georgia guy (talk) 19:55, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

You might want to reconsider your dismissal of the phrase "non-tetrapod fish". I find multiple uses of it on a Google search. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 19:05, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Seeming contradiction

They can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams (e.g., char and gudgeon) to the abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans (e.g., cusk-eels and snailfish), although no species has yet been documented in the deepest 25% of the ocean.

The hadal zone is surely within the deepest 25% of the ocean. What gives? Aboctok (talk) 14:51, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 September 2023

Change the line "Class Acanthodii ("spiny sharks", sometimes classified under Actinopterygii)" to "Class Acanthodii ("spiny sharks", sometimes classified under Actinopterygii) †" to include the "†" symbol and mark it as an extinct group. 82.211.133.139 (talk) 14:16, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done  BelowTheSun  (T•C) 15:02, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Lead image

I believe File:Georgia Aquarium - Giant Grouper edit.jpg should be the lead image. It better represents what comes to mind when people think "fish". It focuses on one fish but also has schools of fish around it. It was taken in an aquarium but still gives the illusion of being in the deep blue sea. The current image is very dull and unattractive with the rock as the background. The proposed image has more character. LittleJerry (talk) 22:54, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Astonished to hear this at this late state (article is already at GAN after much work). We have a crisp and colourful image, even a dramatic one, of an elegant fish well set off by a much plainer background. It conveys "Fish" loud and clear to visitors, which is exactly what we want here. I have by the way extensively revised the entire article, found dozens of sources, corrected any number of errors, redesigned the cladogram, and illustrated the whole article with informative instances and new diagrams. All of that has some bearing on the choice of lead image, as the images now in the text illustrate many aspects of fish biology including indeed shoaling and schooling, diversity, ecology, and paleontology, so the lead image has been selected to be distinctive and non-repetitive. The proposed alternative, when displayed as a small thumbnail, makes the fish's features almost indistinguishable: there is one blobby dark shape, with fins, body, and tail basically only glimpsed as shapeless out-of-focus smudges, surrounded by a large area of uninformative water with some tiny specks dotted about it: really, not too helpful. Chiswick Chap (talk) 23:07, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I still think the rocky background looks terrible for an official portrait of fish as a group. Fish are known for swimming in the water column. LittleJerry (talk) 04:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

You're entitled to think as you please. This fish is definitely swimming in the water. But there is no "right" environment: some fish are pelagic, which I guess is your meaning; but others are coastal, many are reef-dwellers, many live in river weed, some in kelp, others in holes in rocks, in caves or on the seabed. A lead image never says everything, and it's foolish to try. Its job is say one thing, to identify the subject, to start, to lead in, and let the rest of the article tell the story. That, this image certainly does. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:33, 12 February 2024 (UTC)