Talk:Arowana

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According to FishBase, "arowana" is an unofficial vernacular name, while "bonytongue" is the official common name. This will need to be fixed at some point. Stan 02:49, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

--- I consider the concept of "official common names" both oxmoronic and absurd - the fact the common names are by definition unofficial is the main purpose of binomial names! However, I have never heard the name "bony tongue" used to describe these fish, only ever "arowana". "Bony tongue" also strikes me as a contrived name, simply a transation of the family, rather than a true common name that is actually used,and common names should reflect the names that people actualy use.

It is also the translation of the order name, and could potentially lead to confusion (e.g. mormyrids are "bony tongues", but they certainly aren't arowanas). There's no harm is creating a redirect page for "bony tongue" or "bonytongue", but I don't see any point in moving the article.

From Googling, I see there are lots more "arowana" than "bonytongue", even though "bonytongue" is what FishBase and my ichthyology books use. But to answer your implicit question, there has been a move afoot in zoological circles to set up standard English names that are as precise as the traditional binomial names; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) and its talk page for past discussion on what's going on. Among other considerations, lots more people know English than Latin, so the old Latin names are just so much random gobbledygook, they just don't have the meaning for people that they used to. Stan 04:35, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am aware of the attempted "standardisation of common names" to which you refer, and I consider it utterly absurd. Nonetheless, I take your point. However, on the grounds of the google test it seems fair to say that most people have ignored this particular attempt at "standardisation", and an encyclopaedia should reflect what is current, rather than be complicit in some biologist's masterplan to standardise. Just as more people know english than latin, more people certainly know "arowana" than "bony tongue", so I suggest that this article stays under "arowana" with a redirect at "bony( )tongue".

80.225

incidentally - can you check the author for Scleropages leichardti Günther, 1864; I'm sure it's the correct name, but it might need to be bracketed, since I'm not sure if the genus even existed at that time, and can't seem to find much information on it.

[edit] Fossils

I have always read that arowanas are "living fossils" and so forth, so I added some information on fossil species. I still have to do a lot of research (I don't even know the family of Phareodus, nor what other fossil species might be known). Please help if you can! Ginkgo100 02:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wallace Line

The article makes the claim that this family is the only family of freshwater fishes found on both sides of the Wallace Line. This is not true, for example family Centropomidae (giant perches) which is widepread in the Indo-Pacific includes species on both side of this line, two cases in point being Nile perch Lates niloticus and barramundi lates calcarifer. Indeed the latter species itself is found in coastal areas of east Africa, northern Australia and Asia to southern Japan. Unless someone provides justification for retaining the current statement, I will remove it in a few days. Nick Thorne 12:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Centropomidae is not exclusively freshwater; Lates calcarifer is diandromous (that is, migrates between fresh and salt water). --Ginkgo100^talk 20:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and many fishes recognised as freshwater species have life cycles that involve a marine or esturine phase. L.Calcarifer is actually catadromous, spawning in esturine environments. Freshwater eels actually migrate right out into the oceans to spawn, would you not consider them to be freshwater fish? What about trout? Rainbow and brown trout will often proceed to sea if given the chance, yet no one would seriously consider them not to be freshwater fish. thus to say that Centropomidae are not freshwater fish is a false dichotomy. the claim about the Wallace line still fails. Nick Thorne 23:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Trout belong to subfamily Salmoninae, which is hardly a freshwater family. Perhaps the article should read that Osteoglossidae is the only exclusively freshwater family, or the only family whose members are obligate freshwater fishes, to be found on both sides. This is significant because a fish that cannot ever survive saltwater at any stage of its lifecycle theoretically cannot migrate across this line. Scleropages did because of continental drift. --Ginkgo100^talk 18:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)