Fish Names

This is wonderful. You know how excited I can get sometimes about resolving an issue related to common / regional names for things. Well, tonight, during research for a completely other topic, I tripped over this page from the NOAA Fisheries, Office of Science and Technology, called "Local Fish Names".

For the perfectly reasonable reason that "Anglers in different geographical areas often use different local names for the same species of fish", plus "The Recreational Fisheries Statistics Program uses a standard list of scientifically accepted common names" to do their work, they compiled an extensive list of local names (by regions : Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Pacific Coast, and Hawaiian Islands) and drawn up the correspondences to "common names" and "scientific names".

For instance, in Alabama, the "Cobia" ("RACHYCENTRON CANADUM") is known as the "Crab Cruncher". Meanwhile, in the Pacific Northwest, the Queenfish (SERIPHUS POLITUS), Sablefish (ANOPLOPOMA FIMBRIA), and White Sea Bass (ATRACTOSCION NOBILIS) are all known as "Sea Trout".

Wow. All those names.

Posted on November 14, 2009 at 23.57 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Naming Things

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