Fish common names, sizes and ages I have taken from Fishbase or the Encyclopedia of Life websites.
* Denotes open access papers, freely available online. Find web links to these papers at www.helenscales.com/fishscience
Prologue – The wandering ichthyologist
Figures on annual global fish catches come from the UK fish welfare organisation fishcount.org.uk.
Ichthyo-curiosities
Jordan, D. S. 1902. The history of ichthyology. Science 16: 241–258.
Kusukawa, S. 2000. The Historia Piscium (1686). Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 54: 179–197.
Nelson, J. S., Grande, T. C. & Wilson, M.V.H. 2016. Fishes of the World. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.
‘Destitute of feet’ and ‘lanky fish’ from D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s 1910 translation of Aristotle’s History of Animals.
A view from the deep – introducing the fish
Helfman, G., Collette, B.B., Facey, D.E. & Bowen, B.E. 2009. The Diversity of Fishes: Biology, Evolution and Ecology. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Nielsen, J. et al. 2016. Eye lens radiocarbon reveals centuries of longevity in the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus). Science 353: 702704.
Standen, E., Du T.Y. & Larsson, H.C.E. 2014. Development plasticity and the origin of tetrapods. Nature 513: 54–58.
Takezaki, N. & Nishihara, H. 2017. Support for lungfish as the closest relative of tetrapods by using slowly evolving ray-finned fish as the outgroup. Genome Biology and Evolution 9: 93–101.*
Outrageous acts of colour
Endler, J.A. 1980. Natural selection on colour patterns in Poecilia reticulata. Evolution 34: 76–91.*
Reznick, D.N., Shaw. F.H., Rodd, F.H. & Shaw, R.G. 1997. Evaluation of the rate of evolution in natural populations of guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Science 275: 1934–1937.
Seehausen, O., van Alphen, J.J.M. & Witte, F. 1997. Cichlid fish diversity threatened by eutrophication that curbs sexual selection. Science 277: 1808–1811.
Illuminations
Anthes, N., Theobald, J., Gerlach, T., Meadows, M. G. & Michiels, N.K. 2016. Diversity and ecological correlates of red fluorescence in marine fishes. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Volume 4: Article 126.*
Davis, M.P., Sparks, J.S. & Smith, W.L. 2016. Repeated and widespread evolution of bioluminescence in marine fishes. PLoS ONE 11: e0155154.*
Douglas, R.H., Partridge, J.C., Dulai, K.S., Hunt, D.M., Mullineaux, C.W. & Hynninen, P.H. 1999. Enhanced retinal longwave sensitivity using a chlorophyll-derived photosensitiser in Malacosteus niger, a deep-sea dragon fish with far red bioluminescence. Vision Research 39: 2817–2832.*
Michiels, N.K. et al. 2008. Red fluorescence in reef fish: A novel signalling mechanism? BMC Ecology 8:16. *
Sparks, J.S. et al. 2014. The covert world of fish biofluorescence: A phylogenetically widespread and phenotypically variable phenomenon. PLoS ONE 9:e83259.*
Anatomy of a shoal
Barthem, R.B. et al. 2017. Goliath catfish spawning in the far western Amazon confirmed by the distribution of mature adults, drifting larvae and migrating juveniles. Scientific Reports 7: 41784.*
Doherty, P.D. et al. 2017. Long-term satellite tracking reveals variable seasonal migration strategies of basking sharks in the north-east Atlantic. Scientific Reports 7: 42837.*
Naisbett-Jones, L.C. et al. 2017. A magnetic map leads juvenile European Eels to the Gulf Stream. Current Biology 27: 1236–1240.*
Svendsen, M.B.S. et al. 2016. Maximum swimming speeds of sailfish and three other large marine predatory fish species based on muscle contraction time and stride length: a myth revisited. Biology Open 5: 1415–1419.*
Payne, N.L. et al. 2016. Great hammerhead sharks swim on their side to reduce transport costs. Nature Communications 7: 12889.*
Fish food
Allgeier, J.E., Valdivia, A. Cox, C & Layman C.A. 2016. Fishing down nutrients on coral reefs. Nature Communications 7: 12461.*
Bellwood, D.R., Goatley, C.H.R., Bellwood, O., Delbarre, D.J. & Friedman M. 2015. The rise of jaw protrusion in spiny-rayed fishes closes the gap on elusive prey. Current Biology 25: 2696–2700.*
Lissmann, H.W. 1958. On the Function and Evolution of Electric Organs in Fish. Journal of Experimental Biology 35: 156–191.*
Perry, C.T., Kench. P.S., O’Leary, M.J., Morgan, K.M. & Januchowski-Hartley, F. 2015. Linking reef ecology to island building: Parrotfish identified as major producers of island-building sediment in the Maldives. Geology 43: 503–506.*
Vailati, A., Zinnato, L. & Cerbino, R. 2012. How archer fish achieve a powerful impact: hydrodynamic instability of a pulsed jet in Toxotes jaculatrix. PLoS ONE 7: e47867.*
White, W. T. et al. 2017. Phylogeny of the manta and devilrays (Chondrichthyes: mobulidae), with an updated taxonomic arrangement for the family. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 182: 50–57.
At the time I encountered mantas in Fiji 2016, they were still considered to be members of the Manta genus. In 2017, taxonomists reshuffled mantas and their relatives, the devil rays, and put them all into a single genus, Mobula, with eight species. But we can still call them manta rays even though their genus has been banished.
Toxic fish
Casewell, N.R. et al. 2017. The evolution of fangs, venom, and mimicry systems in blenny fishes. Current Biology 27: 1–8.
Clark, E. 1953. The lady and the spear. Harper, New York.
Clark, E. 1969. The lady and the sharks. Harper & Row, New York.
Clark, E., Nelson, D.R. & Dreyer, R. 2015. Nesting sites and behavior of the deep water triggerfish Canthidermis maculata (Balistidae) in the Solomon Islands and Thailand. Aqua International Journal of Ichthyology 21: 1–38.
Inglis, D. 2010. The zombie from myth to reality: Wade Davis, academic scandal and the limits of the real. Scripted 7: 351–369.*
Quotes from Genie on her deep dives later in life come from her Washington Post obituary by Juliet Eilperin, 26 February 2015.
How fish used to be
Benton, M. 2014. Vertebrate palaeontology. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Ferrón, H.G. & Botella, H. 2017. Squamation and ecology of thelodonts. PLoS ONE 12: e0172781.*
Long, J.A., Trinajstic, K., Young. G.C. & Seden, T. 2008. Live birth in the Devonian period. Nature 453: 650–6522.
Sibert, E.C. & Norris, R.D. 2015. New Age of Fishes initiated by the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction. PNAS 112: 8537–8542.*
Fish symphonies
Ruppé, L., Clément, G., Herrel, A., Ballesta, L., Décamps, T., Kéver, L. & Permentier, E. 2015. Environmental constraints drive the partitioning of the soundscape in fishes. PNAS 112: 6092–6097.*
Radford, C.A., Stanley, J.A., Simpon, S.A. & Jeffs, G.A. 2011. Juvenile coral reef fish use sound to locate habitats. Coral Reefs 30: 295–305.
Wilson, B., Batty, R.S. & Dill, L.M. 2003. Pacific and Atlantic herring produce burst pulse sounds. Proc. Roy. Soc. London B 271: S95–S97.
Marie Fish’s sound recordings are available to listen to online from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
(Re)thinking fish
Brown, C., Laland, K. & Krause, J. 2011. Fish cognition and behavior. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken.
Brown, C. 2016. Fish pain: an inconvenient truth. Animal Sentience 3(32).*
Grutter, A.S. 2004. Cleaner Fish Use Tactile dancing behavior as a preconflict management strategy. Current Biology 14: 1080–1083.*
Key, B. 2016. Why fish do not feel pain. Animal Sentience 3(1).*
Pinto, A., Oates, J., Grutter, A. & Bshary, R. 2011. Cleaner wrasses Labroides dimidiatus are more cooperative in the presence of an audience. Current Biology 21: 1140–1144.*
Sneddon, L.U., Braithwaite, V.A. & Gentle, M.J. 2003. Do fishes have nociceptors? Evidence for the evolution of a vertebrate sensory system. Proc. Roy. Soc. B 270: 1115–1121.
Sources of fish stories
Sedna the sea goddess Adapted from various sources including Laugrand, F. & Oosten, J. 2009. Sedna in Inuit shamanism and art in eastern Arctic. The University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, Alaska.
How the flounder lost its smile Adapted from Morris, S. 1911. Manx Fairy tales. David Nutt, London.
The salmon of knowledge Adapted from various sources including Rolleston, T.W. 1910 The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland, G. G. Harrap & Co., London.
O Namazu Adapted from various sources including Volker, T. 1975. The animal in Far Eastern Art. E.J. Brill, Leiden.
Osiris and the elephantfish This version of the Osiris myth was told to me by Egyptologist Dr Meghan Strong.
Vatnagedda Adapted from Davidsson, O. 1900. Icelandic fish folklore. Scottish Review 36: 312–331.
Chipfalamfula Adapted from Knappert, J. 1977. Bantu myths and other tales. E. J. Brill, Leiden.
The doctor of the sea Adapted from various sources including Stothard, P. January 25 2005. Islam’s missing scientists. The Times Literary Supplement digital edition.
The fish and the golden shoe Adapted from Jameson, R.D. 1982. Cinderella in China. In Cinderella, a case book. Ed. Dundes, A. University of Wisconsin Press. Madison, Wisconsin.