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Is anyone on this site a Ichthyologist? That would be very interesting. But You can't be just an average fishlover can you?

Also Isn't It Ironic that It is called Ichthyology and that there is a deadly fish disease called Ichthyophthirius?

Chris

I'm probably going to go into ichthyology in the future, after I get my BS in zoology.

Also Isn't It Ironic that It is called Ichthyology and that there is a deadly fish disease called Ichthyophthirius

Not really... The Latin prefix "Ichthy-" means fish, so it isn't too unusual that the word for the study of fish and the name of a fish disease would start with the prefix that means "fish".

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

We have some potential future ichthyologists here, but no active ones that I know of.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

The taxonomic name for the White Spot organism is actually derived from two Greek words, the word for fish ("Ichthys" ) and the verb meaning 'to destroy' ("phthiow" ). Thus the name translates as "The destroyer of fishes", which is a pretty apt description of White Spot when it is left untreated.

Sadly the Board won't let me embed Unicode HTML characters in posts, otherwise I'd have posted the Greek originals from my Lexicon.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I will be going into Fishery Science in a year. One of the courses i have to take will be Icthyology amongst others.

I would like to be an Ichtyologist. That would be very cool. Then I could own a fishstore and put the degree on the wall and people would be like... Whoa! Lets buy from the pro!!!

Chris

If you were an ichthyologist or a marine biologist, you wouldn't open up a fish store. There's a bigger reason for that degree than selling pet stuff to the general public. Not only that, most people wouldn't know what an ichthyologist was, and even if they did, they wouldn't much care.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Oh, I know. Just saying. Nevermind.

Chris

However, if you became an ichthyologist, you could end up doing some seriously exotic research and collecting. Fancy being paid to go diving in Lake Tanganyika and collect Frontosas and Paracyprichromis nigripinnis? Or accompanying Dr Paul Loiselle and Juan Miguel Artigas Azas on a Central American Cichlid dive? You might even find yourself being paid to observe something such as Paracentropyge boylei, the Candystripe Angelfish, in the wild - though you'll be breathing a LOT of Heliox if you do that ...

Best of all, you could find yourself being paid to research deep sea abyssal fishes. There are some seriously strange fishes in the abyssal ocean depths, including Chiasmodon, the Black Swallower, which is capable of engulfing prey twice its own size. Taking picture of that in the wild will be a colossal logistical undertaking, though - that fish is found at depths of at least 3,000 feet, and sometimes down as far as 10,000 feet. WAY out of the reach of scuba divers. Minimum kit for that expedition would be a decommissioned US warship with a 200 ton gantry crane on the rear deck, and a bathyscape. But then, if you're really fortunate, someone else will be shelling out the $250 million or so that little lot will cost to set up.

How about a dive to the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench? Some odd fishes live down there. However, just getting to where they live involves some frightening statistics. The ocean bottom of Challenger Deep is seven miles below the surface - 37,000 feet. It takes a state of the art deep submersible nine hours just to get there. Then, it has to keep you alive and safe while you take your pictures, then get you to the surface safely, while subject to external pressures of seventy-five tons per square inch. Yes, there are fishes that llve at those depths. A lightless, yawning void that is darker than the most distant reaches of interstellar space, because no light can penetrate to that depth from the surface, where the water is at a near constant 4 degrees celsius even though the location is at equatorial latitudes, a frigid, disorienting blackness where the fishes are sightless and rely on touch and lateral line senses to navigate. Forget nerves of steel - to embark upon a manned expedition to those depths, you'll need nerves made from carbon nanotubes. Remember that even a minor glitch in the workings of your submersible at those depths constitutes a potential disaster, and you're nine hours from the surface if something goes wrong, stuck inside a claustrophobic metal tube hoping that you don't end up crushed to death. Takes a special kind of person to go on an expedition like that.

Of course, that's the glamour side of ichthyology. In between moments of hair-raising adventure, you'll find yourself in a dusty museum alcove surrounded by formalin bottles full of dead fishes, dividing your time between dissecting and writing 100,000 word dissertations on your findings. Mind you, get lucky and you could find yourself with a new species named after you ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Sounds ace, im actually off to do the phd in september.
Await the arrival of melanotaenia gittus hirsutus.

I think you're supposed to wait for someone else to name the fish after you. That's after you pretend to be nice and name a few for other people.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

That's the usual way it works - you gather together a group of people all working on the same organisms and after a while, they start naming new species after each other.

However, there's usually the little matter of "making a significant contribution to the field" that goes hand in hand with this. For example, if someone at some point names a new Cichlid species after Sven Kullander, then he's done much to earn this - among other things, he's reorganised the entire Cichlasomine taxa following on from Dr Humphrey Greenwood's pioneering work in the 1970s, as well as single handedly tackling the entire Malagassian taxa So he's very definitely made a "significant contribution" to the field.

Mind you, other people of note have a habit of cropping up in scientific names. Mirolabrichthys imeldae was named for Imelda Marcos, and I cannot help but wonder if this was acknowledgement of her contribution to the world of shoes. Likewise, her husband Ferdinand Marcos, the former dictator of the Philippines, ended up being commemorated in the name of another Phillipine reef fish, Hoplolatilus marcosi, which I suspect was a bribe of sorts - old Ferdinand was well known in his day as being the Emperor of the Kickback

Mind you, having creatures named after you as a means of gaining some immortality can be a double edged sword. As this article illustrates all too well ... President Bush, along with   Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, are all commemorated in the names of the organisms Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi and Agathidium rumsfeldi. Only problem being ... the organisms in question are slime mould beetles.

I wonder what was going on in their minds when they chose this?



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Await the arrival of melanotaenia gittus hirsutus.

OMG...

Am I the only one ROFLMAO....that is hilarious git. I want that fish in my tank when you find it.

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

lol, itll probably only feed in the dark, and be really surly to tankmates.lol.Will kill plants by depriving them of water.

Hahaha...   Cheney.

I wish I had a slime-mold beetle named after me though. That would be most excellent.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Actually, during one of my Entomology society meetings, we discussed the fact that some scientists offered the possibility of companies having their own species named after them in exchange for bankrolling the research. This led to much mirth and merriment as we contemplated the possibilities, such as naming a new species of parasitic tapeworm after McDonalds or Burger King

Mind you, on the subject of wacky taxonomic names, there are some real gems out there. For example, Discworld fans will be delighted to know that one among their number, workiing in the field of plant paleontology, named a fossil plant Gingoities nannyoggiae ... Tolkien fans will find a brace of creatures named after Hobbit/Lord of the Rings characters, Gary Larson has an owl louse named after him (Strigiphilus garylarsoni)), and there's a fly named after the Grateful Dead - Dicrotendipes thanatogratus. The authors Adrian & Edgecombe, workers on Trilobites, have been fairly active in the field of wacky taxonomy, with the following Trilobites being named by them:

Mackenziurus johnnyi, M. joeyi, M. deedeei, M. ceejayi Adrian and Edgecombe 1997, named after the members of teh Ramones;

Arcticalymene viciousi, A. rotteni, A. jonesi, A. cooki, A. matlocki Adrian and Edgecome 1997, named after the Sex Pistols.

You'll also find David Attenborough has a couple of beasties named after him - the fossil plesiosaur Attenborosoaurus, and the New Guinea Long Beaked Echidna, Zaglossus attenboroughi.

Among fishes, there is the fossil Aesopchtnhys, named after the author of the fables in Classical Antiquity, and there is a deep sea fish called Grimaldichthys profondissimus, named after Prince Albert of Monaco (family name Grimaldi), who also has an entire Genus of squid named after him - Grimalditeuthis bonplandi being the type species - and another squid, Lepidoteuthis grimaldii. This was on account of Prince Albert being an amateur squid enthusiast, who collected spceimens for professionals to dissect.

One of the more amusing sea creatures is Phialella zappai, named after Frank Zappa, apparently because the taxonomist was a fan of the musician and had a plan to get to meet him, upon hearing Zappa say "There is nothing I'd like better than having a jellyfish named after me".

While on the subject of Jellyfishes, one species was named after the scientist who discovered it, and discovered that it was the cause of a nasty and painful stinging rash called Irukandi Syndrome. The research he conducted into this lead to a Darwin Award Honourable Mention, just to show you what scientists will do for fame.

Oh, and there's a Cichlid called Apistogramma mendezi, named after an evnrionmental campaigner in South America (but his name has been mis-spelled in the taxon - it should be mendesi, but the mistake is now stuck thanks to the rules of the ICZN).

finally, how about some romance? Carl Heinrich in 1923 named a series of moths after his beloved - Gretchena deicatana, G. dulciana, G. amatana and G. concubitana - the specific names translate as "delicate", "sweet", "beloved" and "lying together" respectively. Now isn't that sweet?

Find LOTS more taxonomic wonders and weirdness here.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Im still an undecided major, I may go into the Biology field, since my school doesnt offer Ichthyology, but I'm sure the math would KILL me...

Inky

If you were an ichthyologist or a marine biologist, you wouldn't open up a fish store

A number of lfs in my area are owned by marine biologists or have one-or more-on their staff. And they do point that out in their advertising.

Whoa! Lets buy from the pro!!!

Not necessarily, there are unethical people in most professions; a lfs owner with a degree could easily just be there to make a buck as well.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean