Fillets of the Scomber scombrus, the Atlantic mackerel. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

This was dinner tonight.

It swam the seas of Norway. It was processed in South Korea. I bought it from a Japanese grocery store in California.

The global reach of the seafood trade, summarized in a humble label. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

In death, the Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) remains a beautiful fish. Its back is a steely blue, fading to a shimmering silver. The dark markings evoke some ancient glyphic script, each fish a unique stamp. As if some greater hand had written a blessing upon each fish before setting it into the sea.

The markings of the Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus). (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

They would speed off — and while small in size at about a foot (30 cm) long, their powerful, lunate tails beat on like like a supercharged wind-up toy, jetting their little torpedo bodies through the turbulent seas. Schools upon schools. Hundreds. Millions.

And then, they are caught. In the gullet of a cavernous, mechanical net. Or with the rod of a young child, who has now earned an early but everlasting memory of the ocean.

Atlantic mackerel collected by researchers during a bottom trawl survey. NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center conducts these surveys to provide information on the abundance, biology, and distribution of the marine resources in the Northwest Atlantic. (Image Credit: NOAA)

The pair of fillets that now sit atop my kitchen counter have traveled around the world, from Norway to California. Perhaps, on some kitchen counter in Japan or even Romania, another pair sits, but these having been caught off of Massachusetts or Maine.

East to west to west to east. The mackerel carousel all ends the same way.

Pan-seared mackerel fillets. No oil needed — the mackerel carries enough of its own. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

The steely blue skin now sizzles into a golden brown. The acrid, pungent smell of the salted mackerel fillet soon melts into a rich, oily aroma. As the pan heats, the mackerel’s own fats and juices crackle and burn, as a rasher of bacon on a griddle.

The fish is done. Its skin crisp. Its firm, muscular body resists the pull of the fork, but finally gives way into chevroned, angled flakes. It is eaten. Its oils lather the tongue with each chew and savor. It is that instinctive response when a wholesome fatness is tasted. Some primal drive is sated as the body senses the good and useful calories ingested and the fatty acids absorbed.

And then, a smile.

A mackerel sky off the Gippsland Lakes, Victoria, Australia. (Image Credit: John O’Neill/Wikimedia Commons)

Scomber scombrus Linnaeus, 1758
Atlantic Mackerel (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Scombridae (Mackerels)

FishBase Page: http://fishbase.org/summary/Scomber-scombrus.html

– Ben Young Landis

Sparus aurata, the dorade royale, with lamb’s quarters and herbs. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Sparus aurata is truly a classic fish.

Called by many names — gilt-head bream in English, daurade or dorade royale in French, orata in Italian — the fish that now sits on my kitchen counter can also be found on Roman mosaics like this one from the ancient city of Pompeii, which famously perished in a volcanic eruption in year 79:

A mosaic found in House VIII.2.16 in Pompeii, now exhibited at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (No. 120177). The gilt-head bream (Sparus aurata) is at the top right. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The gilt-head bream (Sparus aurata) depicted in a mosaic from house VIII.2.16 in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. Note the characteristic gold-bar on the fish’s forehead. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Here was a fish prized in French and Italian cuisines and has been a part of Mediterranean culture since at least the Roman times — yet having lived mostly in East Asia and North America, this was my first exposure to it.

The crushing, molar-like teeth of Sparus aurata can be seen here. The teeth pattern is common to members of the porgy family (Sparidae), enabling them to crush the shells of molluscs and crustaceans. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

I first saw dorade royale for sale a few weeks ago at my local fishmonger, Sunh Fish Company, but it was not until this week that I had a chance to take one home. When I asked, the store staff told me they had been ordering dorade as an experiment to see if there was interest in our local area. They told me the fish came from Cyprus.

A quick jaunt on Google revealed a New York Times article from 1997 on the dorade royale‘s newfound attention from New York City chefs. Other sources online even claimed that dorade royale was sacred to the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite (Shaw and Shaw 2000).

My exploration was further helped with a plastic tag attached to the fish by its original distributor — a tag printed with a QR code:

A QR code tag shipped with a daurade royale (Sparus aurata). In the background, the unique, molar-like teeth of the dorade can be seen in its mouth — a trait common in members of the porgy family, Sparidae. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

The QR code translated into a link for this video from an aquaculture company, Kimagro, showing thousands of gilt-head breams swimming in giant cage-pens used in farming marine fish out at sea — these ones being in Limassol, Cyprus:

(Oops — looks like embedding disabled by user. Click on this instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJR1iMqq8a0)

From ancient Roman mosaics to Greek gods to gargantuan aquaculture operations, the little fish in my hands suddenly felt very big.

To honor its Mediterranean heritage, I decided to bake my dorade royale whole, with familiar herbs and spices — rosemary, thyme, garlic, salt and black pepper, and a coat of olive oil.

The result was a revelation. My tongue first met a burst of flavor and texture from the crisp, fatty skin of the dorade, which paired perfectly with the deliciously sweet, juicy white flesh attached. It was wave upon wave of dazzling sensations, all from a single morsel.

Good enough for Greek gods, good enough for me.

Dorade royale (Sparus aurata), with their characteristic “gilt crowns” across their foreheads, await purchase in a fishmonger’s display case. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Addendum July 2, 2013: My dentist friend was fascinated by the crazy teeth of the dorade, and asked me to take closeup photos of the jaws I preserved. Here are two photos for your shock and delight:

The upper and lower jaws of Sparus aurata, from an anterior view. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

The upper and lower jaws of Sparus aurata. The jaws are positioned beyond their natural extension to showcase the teeth. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Sparus aurata Linnaeus, 1758
Dorade Royale (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Sparidae (Porgies)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Sparus-aurata.html

Citations

Shaw, JW, MC Shaw. 2000. Kommos: an excavation on the south coast of Crete volume IV: the Greek sanctuary. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1333p.

Addendum: I’ve edited the post to correct that Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, not Roman. Her Roman equivalent is named Venus.

– Ben Young Landis

Two pieces of sayori (Hyporhamphus sajori) nigiri. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Recently, my friends and I went to try out a Japanese restaurant new to us, but reputed to have some quality sashimi. A quick glance at the “Today’s Specials” whiteboard found a fish new to my tastebuds: sayori, or the halfbeak.

A new fish to try out? I’ll have one order, please.

The characteristic lower jaw of the halfbeak family is apparent in this photo. (Image Credit: unknown; sourced from shizuokagourmet.com)

Halfbeaks are marine fish belonging to the Order Beloniformes – belone translating as “needle” in Greek, describing the slender form of many of these fishes. Beloniform fishes also include flying fish, needlefish, as well as sauries, one of which we visited in a past blogpost.

Family Hemiramphidae contains the halfbeaks — named because their lower jaw juts out farther than their upper jaw.

Upon closer inspection, however, this beak-like extension is really just the fish’s chin, and not its entire jaw. As evolutionary biologist Matthew McGee explains in a blogpost from the Wainwright Lab of Dr. Peter Wainwright at University of California, Davis:

The halfbeak is actually a very long extension of the part of the mandible that is below, and in front of the teeth — a chin. The structure is smooth and not armed with teeth. This is our first clue that the structure is not an elaborate jaw used in prey capture. If it’s not part of the feeding apparatus, then how does it function?

McGee further explains proposed theories on the function of this well-endowed chin, including one hypothesis that it serves as a special sensing probe to detect prey in darkness. You can read more in his blogpost.

And how did the sayori taste to my sensory cells? Clean and delightful. The flesh was densely packed and firm, as you would expect from a thin, muscled fish. The shiso leaf tucked in the nigiri provided a minty counterbalance, and the spiced, berry-sweet sauce on top added another twang.

I did not get a chance to ask the chef the geographic origin of my halfbeak, but for the sake of a discussion on Japanese cuisine we will assume it is the Japanese halfbeak (Hyporhamphus sajori), a species native to Japan’s waters. Anglers from the southeastern United States will find it reminiscent of another halfbeak species — the ballyhoo (Hemiramphus brasiliensis), popularly used as trolled baits to catch sailfish and other open water gamefish.

We’ll close with two video demos of preparing sayori for sashimi:

A handful of sayori. (Image Credit: Honda Motor Co., Ltd)

Hyporhamphus sajori (Temminck & Schlegel, 1846)
Sayori (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Beloniformes (Needlefishes)
Family Hemiramphidae (Halfbeaks)

FishBase Page: http://fishbase.org/summary/305

– Ben Young Landis

Rockfish fillet, blackened. Served with heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

When a great meal comes together, it brings a smile to my face. I was very happy with how this blackened rockfish fillet turned out — crusted with dried fines herbes and freshly ground black pepper, served with a tomato, basil, mozzarella and balsamic vinaigrette salad. With a glass of Lillet blanc, it was a delightful way to spend a summer afternoon.

But I would have been even more delighted if I could have learned the true identity of my rockfish.

The trouble with fish sold in most U.S. supermarkets is that they are often anonymous. Stripped of their skin, fins and head, there is nothing identifiable about each slab of meat.

Rockfish fillets sold by a retailer. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

For as far removed as most U.S. shoppers are to traditional butchers and farm operations, at least most people can point out what a chicken or steer or turkey looks like. But the same isn’t true for fish. In this particular package of fish fillets, all I have to go on are “Pacific rockfish” and “harvested in Canada” — and this stray scale.

A rockfish (Sebastes spp.) scale. The scale measures approximately 9 mm. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis)

This anonymity is especially complicated when rockfish are involved.

Typically, when I’m faced with an unfamiliar fish, there is at least a name or some clue that helps me dig deeper at its identity. But look up “Canadian rockfish” and you’ll find that there are at least 34 species of rockfish in the seas of British Columbia.

And as you can see from the below poster, these rockfish are a splendidly colored and diverse bunch.

A poster of British Columbia rockfish species, produced by Fisheries Oceans Canada. Click Image to open the poster PDF file. (Image Credit: Fisheries and Oceans Canada)

So which species might it be? The regularly updated commercial fishery summaries on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website don’t offer much more help — they show that multiple species dominate the landings record. As of July 19, 2013, Pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus), yellowtail rockfish (Sebastes flavidus), widow rockfish (Sebastes entomelas) and silvergray rockfish (Sebastes brevispinis) round out the bulk of the landings.

With what few clues and resources available to me — and to most casual enthusiasts — my investigation meets a dead end. We are left only with a handful of Sebastes.

Most rockfishes indeed belong to the genus Sebastes, which in turn belongs to Order Scorpaeniformes — the scorpionfishes. This makes rockfishes the relatives of the red lionfish, and like the lionfish and other scorpionfishes, Sebastes species have venom glands in their fin spines.

But if there is one bit of rockfish trivia you take away today, it should be how old Sebastes species can grow.

Sebastes species are known to be incredibly long-lived. The Sebastes species with the longest estimated lifespans are the shortraker rockfish (Sebastes borealis) at 157 years and the rougheye rockfish (Sebastes aleutianus) at 205 years (Cailliet et al. 2001). The four species we named off earlier have estimated maximum ages of 100, 64, 60 and 82, respectively (Cailliet et al. 2001) — so it is possible that the rockfish I had eaten was equal to or much older than myself in age.

That is a humbling thought.

The earbone or “otolith” of a black rockfish (Sebastes melanops) bears rings that correspond with its age, and scientists often prepare otoliths for microscope examination in order to determine fish age. This rockfish is estimated to be more than 40 years old. (Image Credit: Vanessa von Biela/USGS)

What one makes of this fact is ultimately according to one’s individual perspective on nature. At the least, it is reflective to know that some fish — typically thought of as these ever-replenishing, disposable resources — have lifetimes on the same scale as human beings. That our human world goes on, decade after decade, with its changes in history and culture, from political upheavals to the wax and wane of fashions and arts — and all the while, schools upon schools of rockfishes swim the Pacific depths, living their lifetimes alongside ours, somehow making their way year after year, eating, sleeping, reproducing.

And on any given day, some rockfish is also meeting its fate in the jaws of a shark or a seal. Or, perhaps, under the blade of a fillet knife — and eventually in the snug, chilled embrace of supermarket cling wrap.

A yellowtail rockfish (Sebastes flavidus), one of the top commercial rockfish species from British Columbia, and a possible identity for our anonymous fillet. (Image Credit: Jean DeMarignac/NOAA SIMoN)

Author’s Note: Throughout this website, I have endeavored to profile individual fish species. For the purposes of this essay — and for the reasons explained — we are left without a species-level identification.

So our customary taxonomic blurb below describes the genus only. French naturalist George Cuvier was the first to describe a rockfish by the name Sebastes, which means “venerable” in Greek (the human name “Sebastian” comes from the same word).

The “spp.” used in the title of this post is a scholarly abbreviation used to denote “multiple species”, as in I am referring to all the species that belong to the genus Sebastes, and not one particular species. The abbreviation is not italicized, as in Sebastes spp. or Danio spp.

Sebastes Cuvier, 1829
The Rockfishes

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Scorpaeniformes (Scorpionfishes, Sculpins and Allies)
Family Sebastidae (Rockfishes and Thornyheads)

FishBase Page: http://fishbase.org/identification/SpeciesList.php?genus=Sebastes

Citations

Cailliet, GM, AH Andrews, EJ Burton, DL Watters, DE Kline, LA Ferry-Graham. 2001. Experimental Gerontology 36(4-6): 739-764. doi: 10.1016/S0531-5565(00)00239-4

– Ben Young Landis

“Thank You Lord” by Al Hoffacker, capturing a spotted seatrout in the clutches of an osprey in Florida. (Copyright Al Hoffacker/Half-Cracker Waterward Photography & Images)

Reading my Facebook newsfeed on a lazy Saturday morning, my jaw dropped at seeing this fantastic photo posted by the Facebook Page of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge.

We see here an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) beating its powerful wings and carrying off a sizable fish in its hook-like talons. Ospreys are birds of prey that specialize in feeding on fish, circling high over inshore waters until they spot a target — at which point they hover in mid-air to steady their position — and then suddenly dive-bomb towards the water surface, plunging in talons-first to strike and grab the target fish. It’s quite the sight to see.

Detail of “Thank You Lord” by Al Hoffacker, capturing a spotted seatrout in the clutches of an osprey in Florida. (Copyright Al Hoffacker/Half-Cracker Waterward Photography & Images)

In the clutches of this osprey is a large, beautiful spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus). For some size perspective, ospreys measure almost 2 feet (60 cm) from beak to tail but top out only around 4 pounds (1.8 kg). This spotted seatrout is nearly the same length and possibly twice that weight.

This moment in time was captured by nature photographer Al Hoffacker of Fort Meyers, Florida. Mr. Hoffacker generously allowed me to reshare his photo on Better Know a Fish, and I asked him to share the story behind this action shot:

Was in my flats skiff idling out my channel to sight fish Snook and Redfish, when the bird appeared off in the distance. Noticed it was carryin’ a very large Spotted seatrout. I immediately grabbed the camera and took the shot and watched as the bird began a landing on a perch in a Red Mangrove tree. Just before landing, the fish fell out of the birds talons and into the Mangrove understory.

The bird studied the wounded prey for a minute or so, as it couldn’t get to it again because of the thick vegetation. The bird then went back to feeding on the adjacent grass flat. Went over to the area where the fish had fallen, and saw no trace of it. It was a really cool way to start off a beautiful morning. By the way, we had a banner day of sight fishing for Snook, Redfish, and baby Tarpon.

In his website biography, Hoffacker professes that since he was “blessed to be on the water and in the woods almost every day, why not capture and share the beauty with others what ‘The Big Guy’ created for all of us to enjoy and conserve.”

Nature photographer Al Hoffacker. (Image courtesy of Al Hoffacker)

Hoffacker says that he enjoys sharing his photos with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other folks who appreciate the wildlife moments in life, and that he puts his photography earnings into better camera equipment and to help his daughter though college.

“Thank You Lord” was the title he gave to this scene. You can purchase this and other prints at www.half-crackerphoto.com.

*   *   *   *   *

The spotted seatrout is now the third member of the drum family that has been featured on this blog. I seem to have an accidental fondness for drum.

But once again, it is fascinating to note the diversity of shapes and forms that the Sciaenidae body plan can evolve into. The white seabass (Atractoscion nobilis) is a very large predator that schools in the cold, kelp forests of California, whereas the spotted drum (Equetus punctatus) is small, bottom-dwelling forager in the warm coral reefs of the Caribbean.

In contrast, the spotted seatrout is more of a shallow-water predator, hunting fish prey in seagrass beds and oyster beds in estuaries and coastal waters of the eastern United States and Gulf of Mexico. Spotted seatrout have a pair of sharp, dog-like canine teeth at the tip of their upper jaw — a feature recognized in their genus name, Cynoscion, where Cyno- comes from the Greek word for dog.

The canine teeth of the spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) is apparent in this photo of a seatrout tagged for research purposes. (Image Credit: Tim Ellis/North Carolina State University)

The mouth of a spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) and its namesake teeth. (Image Source: Steve Gibson/Gibby’s Fishing Blog)

Also known as “speckled trout” or “speckled seatrout” or “spotted weakfish”, Cynoscion nebulosus isn’t just eagle food — it is also highly sought after by humans as a food fish and gamefish wherever it occurs.

Spotted seatrout is of such importance to the recreational fishing industry that many state government agencies in the U.S. study seatrout ecology, so as to understand how to manage seatrout numbers to sustain both wild populations and recreational fishing harvests.

Watch this video from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on spotted seatrout breeding ecology studies in Tampa Bay, Florida — in which we also find out how to tell if a spotted seatrout is male or female:

And watch this video by North Carolina State University researcher Tim Ellis on the vulnerability of spotted seatrout to extreme cold snaps during winter seasons — a phenomenon documented as far back as 1709. Ellis describes the tagging research used to study the movement of seatrout within estuaries and to investigate this vulnerability:

Cynoscion nebulosus — the spotted seatrout. (Image source: http://www.gulfshores.com)

Cynoscion nebulosus (Cuvier, 1830)
Spotted Seatrout (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Sciaenidae (Drums and Croakers)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/405

My thanks again to Al Hoffacker for permission to share his photo.

– Ben Young Landis

Golden threadfin bream (Nemipterus virgatus) sold frozen. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

I don’t always buy frozen fish, but when I do, I usually regret it.

To be clear, fish that is caught and immediately cleaned, vacuum-packed and then frozen can be very good. Frozen mackerel fillets, for example.

But the simple truth is, when a fish is frozen, there are very few clues about the freshness and quality of the fish until you thaw it. All the typical signs you would look for in freshly caught fish — clear, bright eyes, red-hued gills, a clean smell — aren’t apparent in a fish that is frozen stiff.

That was the risk I took when I shopped at our local Asian supermarket recently.

Asian markets are wonderful places to go fish-spotting. There is always such a variety of species — often displayed whole for the buyer to handle and examine. Some are even alive and swimming in crowded, aerated tanks.

This pair of golden threadfin bream (Nemipterus virgatus) I picked up were decidedly less lively.

Frozen and shrink-wrapped on a polystyrene tray, there is no way for me to know how long the fish spent decomposing in the heat before being frozen, or other guesses at its fate before being repackaged by the supermarket’s distribution center.

Thawing the package out, the distinct smell of old fish hit me.

Nemipterus virgatus, thawed from a frozen package. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

The head of a Nemipterus virgatus. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Notice the general pallor of the fish. The eyes are clouded over, nearly opaque on one side. The body limp and flaccid, unlike the taut fullness of fresh fish. Scaling and gutting these two carcasses, the stink of old fish permeated my kitchen.

Now compare my photos of the thawed bream with these photos of fresh, never-frozen bream. Notice how bright and lively the colors are — and you can see the characteristic “golden threadfin” on the fish’s tail in the first photo. The eyes are clear and life-like. The smell undoubtedly would be that of a clean, ocean smell, with only a hint of fish odor.

Nemipterus virgatus is known as itoyoridai in Japanese. (Image Source: http://www.takasushiatlanta.com)

Golden threadfin bream sold in a Hong Kong supermarket. (Image Source: Simmremmai/Wikimedia Commons)

The golden threadfin bream is a member of the threadfin bream family, Nemipteridae, a group of fishes related to grunts and porgies. My frozen fish were caught in Vietnam, but golden threadfin bream are found in the oceans off throughout East Asia as far north as Japan, and also off of northwestern Australia.

Golden threadfin bream are typically about 9 inches (23 cm) in length. And of course, they are very popular as food fish and are a commercial fishery in East Asia.

With that, let us erase some of that old fish smell with a few photos of live golden threadfin bream:

A golden threadfin bream (Nemipterus virgatus) caught off of northern Taiwan. (Image Source: dracula0911.blogspot.com)

A golden threadfin bream (Nemipterus virgatus) caught off of northern Taiwan. (Image Source: dracula0911.blogspot.com)

Nemipterus virgatus, the golden threadfin bream. (Image Source: h16nakaji.blogspot.com)

Nemipterus virgatus. (Image Source: Georges Declercq/WoRMS)

Nemipterus virgatus (Houttuyn, 1782)
Golden Threadfin Bream (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Nemipteridae (Threadfin Breams)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/396

– Ben Young Landis

Sold as smelt, this is actually a package of Chilean silversides (Odonesthes regia), which is not in the smelt family, Osmeridae. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

This is not a bag of smelt.

Fish are notoriously insufficiently labeled. And sometimes, they are entirely mislabeled, as we will see in this example.

On my last trip to our local Asian supermarket, I also picked up this package of frozen fish. Smelt is one of my favorite fish to eat — various smelt species are eaten in many countries, often deep-fried or grilled whole, with female fish often full of rich, creamy eggs inside. So I was excited to bring this batch home and have a smelt species to write about.

Although the packaging said “smelt” in three different languages — English, French and Chinese — when I opened the bag, something else fell out.

Odontesthes regia is one of several species referred to as “pejerrey” in Peru. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis)

The fish in my hand had two dorsal fins — the fins along the fish’s back. Both, however, were supported by thin bones, or rays.

True smelts belong to Family Osmeridae and various other families in Order Osmeriformes. True smelts only have one dorsal fin with rays, while the second dorsal fin, located closer to the tail, looks more like a little fleshy nub. This type of fin is called an adipose fin – you can also find them on salmon, trout and most catfish.

The difference in appearance between between an adipose fin and a regular ray-fin. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

A package of Chilean silversides (Odontesthes regia) showing its country of origin, Peru. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

The dorsal fins were a good clue, and narrowed down the possible families of fishes. Also helpful was the country of origin: wild-caught in Peru.

A round of searches online revealed the fish’s identity: the Chilean or Peruvian silverside (Odontesthes regia), a small fish topping at 5 inches (13 cm) native to the estuaries and coasts of Chile and Peru.

Odonthesthes regia, as pictured in the online commerce website Alibaba.com. (Image Source: http://www.alibaba.com)

Silversides belong to Order Atheriniformes, which also contains the freshwater rainbowfishes popular in the aquarium trade, as well as the odd priapiumfishes, in which the male fish has a sex organ extending from underneath its head.

Less bizarre but no less interesting a relative is the California grunion (Leuresthes tenuis), famous for its spawning orgies onto sandy beaches at night. The California grunion is a close relative of our Peruvian silversides, both belonging to the silverside family Atherinopsidae.

In Peru, the Peruvian silverside is referred to as pejerrey, a name also used elsewhere in South America for other silverside species. Pejerrey is “highly appreciated in South America, especially in Peru and Chile where it is considered a fish of excellent gastronomic quality” (Orellana and Toledo 2007). Online recipes show photos of pejerrey sandwiches, and as my Peruvian colleague from graduate school Martin Romero Wolf tells me, “We eat it deep fried or in ceviche. It good and cheap. Has a sort of strong taste.”

Odontesthes regia featured on a Peruvian postage stamp. (Image Source: www. stampsperu.com)

Odontesthes regia, the Chilean or Peruvian silverside. (image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

So pejerrey is what we will call it, to reflect its Peruvian heritage. Now for the fun of it, let’s check on the other names on the the package label.

Eperlan, the French word used, is the name for the European smelt (Osmerus eperlanus) of northern European lakes and seas – a true smelt.

香魚, the Chinese characters used, refers to yet another species on yet another continent, specifically the sweetfish (Plecoglossus altivelis) of East Asian rivers and seas. It is known as ayu in Japan — and it is also a true smelt.

One label. Three names. Three species. Three continents.

But what’s the difference, really? All are small, silvery fish what roam the seas and estuaries, and if you wanted to sell pejerrey to audiences unfamiliar with names like “pejerrey” or “silversides”, you might choose to grab another name that the local audience has context of.

Yet here lies the inevitable disappointment. Those who know the difference will be disappointed. There are indeed differences among the three fish – pejerrey, éperlan, ayu — and having had both ayu and pejerrey, I can say that they differ greatly in their flavors and tastes. Not to speak of their ecologies and cultural contexts.

So I choose not to be oblivious to mislabeled fish. If these days we can make a big fuss about the difference between kale varieties or grape varietals, I think the better thing to do is to better know a fish — and appreciate their splendid biological and gastronomical diversity.

Fried pejerrey served on tortillas. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Odonteshes regia (Humboldt, 1821)
Pejerrey (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Atheriniformes (Silversides)
Family Atherinopsidae (Neotropical Silversides)

FishBase Page: http://fishbase.org/summary/8172

Citations

Orellana, FA, HE Toledo. 2007. Growth of juvenile marine silverside (Odontesthes regia Humboldt, 1821)(Atherinidae) in sea net pen cages. Gayana 71(1): 76-83.

– Ben Young Landis

The head of an adult bigeye emperor or mu (Monotaxis grandoculis) at a Japanese restaurant. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

My good friend Len and I stopped by our favorite Japanese restaurant last week, and whilst chatting with the chef, we were treated to the sight of this fabulously expressive fish head.

We just got this in from Hawaii, the chef said. Showing us the invoice, the chef asked Len if he knew how to pronounce the name of this fish, knowing that my friend often visited relations there.

My friend and I looked at the crumpled sheet of paper: 6lbs, mu’u, display.

Mooh-ooh? My friend thought.

Sounds Hawaiian, I said.

A phone call was made to Hawaii for a second opinion. I asked the chef if I may examine the fish close-up.

I stood half-way up on my bar stool to take better photographs. The commotion caused my fellow diners to look on with curiosity.

The fish sat still, frozen with the exaggerated gaze of a kabuki actor.

The filleted remains of a bigeye emperor or mu (Monotaxis grandoculis) at a Japanese restaurant. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

The toothy grin of a bigeye emperor (Monotaxis grandoculis), or mu. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Mu-u, or mū, is the Hawaiian name for Monotaxis grandoculis, variously known as the bigeye emperor or humphead bigeye bream. Resembling a porgy with its snaggled grin and shell-crunching molars, mū belong to a related family, Lethrinidae, popularly known as the emperors.

An adult bigeye emperor (Monotaxis grandoculis) in Hurghada, Red Sea. (Image Credit: Thomas Jundt/www.corals.org)

The mū in our possession would appear to be one of average size, about 15 inches (40 cm). Mū feed on sea snails, brittle stars and sea urchins on coral reefs in Hawaii, westward to East Asia and northern Australia, continuing into the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea (Carpenter and Allen 1989). One young specimen was sighted in Turkish waters, possibly having made its way through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean Sea (Bilecenoglu 2007).

Adult mū can be found in a dark-colored form or a light-colored form. When harassed, both forms have the ability to quickly revert their colors to dark, saddle-like patterns, a throwback to their more striking colors as juveniles (Carpenter and Allen 1989).

Monotaxis grandoculis, the bigeye emperor. (Image Credit: James Watt/Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument)

A juvenile bigeye emperor (Monotaxis grandoculis), known as “mu” in Hawaii. (Image Credit: Bryan Harry/National Park Service)

A juvenile bigeye emperor (Monotaxis grandoculis) in the Red Sea. (Image Credit: Dennis Polack/FishWise Professional/CC-BY)

The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument writes of the mū:

[They] are an odd fish, almost like cows of the shallow reef, the way they gather in groups and wander about. They have an interesting tendency to hover, almost motionless, over the reef. If you try to approach them they magically drift away, keeping the same distance, yet do not appear to move at all. It is like they are levitating.

The Hawaiian Dictionary from the University of Hawaii Press provides clarification on pronouncing the ū vowel:

…like oo  in moon… vowels marked with macrons are somewhat longer than other vowels and are always stressed.

Under its entry for mū:

1. n. General name for destructive insects that eat wood, cloth, or plants…
2. vs. Silent; to shut the lips and make no sound…
3. vi. Gather together, of crowds of people…
4. n. A crab (Dynomene hispida)…
5. (Cap.) n. Legendary people of Lā’au-haele-mai, Kauai…
6. n. Bigeye emperor fish (Monotaxis grandoculis), perhaps named for the Mū people. (PNP muu)…
7. n. Public executioner; he procured victims for sacrifice and executed taboo breakers; children were frightened by being told that the mū would get them…

A bigeye emperor in northwest Hawaii Islands. (Image Credit: Dwayne Meadows/NOAA/NMFS/OPR)

Monotaxis grandoculis (Forsskål, 1775)
Mū (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Lethrinidae (Emperors)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/1869

Citations

Bilecenoglu, M. 2007. The first record of Monotaxis grandoculis (Forsskål, 1775) (Osteichthyes, Lethrinidae) in the Mediterranean Sea. Aquatic Invasions 2(4): 466-467. doi: 10.3391/ai.2007.2.4.22

Carpenter, KE, GR Allen. FAO species catalogue. Vol.9. Emperor fishes and large-eye breams of the world (family Lethrinidae). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of lethrinid species known to date. FAO Fisheries Synopsis. No. 125, Volume 9. Rome, FAO. 1989. 118p.

Kawena Pukui, M, SH Elbert. Hawaiian dictionary: Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986. 600p.

– Ben Young Landis

A box of frozen Janssons frestelse sold by IKEA in the United States, reclining comfortably on an IKEA Karlstad chair. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

All foods have a cultural context. What it is made of, on what occasion it is eaten, perhaps the origin of its name, and so forth. And when that food gets exported to another culture, it makes for many questions and often, an unexpectedly fun exploration into that food’s home culture.

Take for instance, this box of gratäng Jansson I found in the frozen food section at IKEA.

Warming up some Janssons frestelse from IKEA in the oven. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Volvo and H&M aside, IKEA might be the most well-known Swedish brand for the casual consumer, exporting Scandinavian design and home furnishings all over the world. It also pitches Swedish cuisine to new markets and audiences, from pallets of lingonberry jam to freezer stacks of this gratäng Jansson – “potato gratin with marinated herring”, explains the box.

But this being the United States — land of the cultural melting pot and frequently, seemingly foreign-sounding cuisines which in reality are purely American inventions — I wondered how “Swedish” this dish actually was, or whether it was a put-on like “Chinese chicken salad” and so forth.

So I posed the question online to my two Swedish contacts: Kevin, an American marine biologist turned craft beer brewer now living in Sweden, and Tali, who is an expert on Swedish culture, in that he is Swedish.

Me:  Is this something Swedish people actually eat, Kevin, Tali? Any cultural significance? Or is this more like IKEA making stuff up for Americans?

Kevin:  Yes! It’s called Jansson’s Temptation or Janssons Frestelse in Swedish. It’s quite good. Probably the only way to eat pickled sprats! In the U.S. they often substitute herring or anchovy. Very similar, small oily shoaling fish. We eat it every Christmas and maybe for Easter too. I don’t know about IKEA, but when my wife or her relatives make it, it’s fantastic! Usually with lots of cream.

Me:  Thanks, man! I am guessing that the homemade Swedish version is waaaaaaaay much better. The IKEA version was super duper salty and fishy — like, the cream and potatoes were salty too, not just the herring pieces. And I like fishy foods. And would this be the right sprat: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/1357?

Kevin:  Yes, it’s the European sprat, type species for the genus and the one that lives in the Baltic! It is a pretty fishy meal, though. And salty. But there is usually enough garlic, yellow onion and cream to balance it.

Salted sprats (Sprattus sprattus) at a bazaar in Odessa, Ukraine. (Image Credit: Niki K/Wikimedia Commons)

Tali:  Also, it’s THE traditional late-night munchies dish, hence the salt!

Kevin:  Yes! Usually eaten the presence of the Swedish meal trifecta: glass of wine, a pilsner and a glass of schnapps (a whiskey while you wait for food and and Irish coffee after the meal).

Tali:  Which brings us to that wonderful word: blandmissbruk.

Kevin:  Indeed! Translates to something like mixed abuse, right?

Tali:  Indeed. Healthier than it sounds… sort of.

Me:  It would seem that I need to get some blandmissbruk in before I dip into Janssons frestelse again?

Tali:  Just make sure you have the “lagom“ amount (see: Slate.com | Why Are Swedes So Quiet?).

Me:  [....] (That’s me attempting lagom in this conversation.)

Kevin:  Lagom isn’t something one attempts. It is a state of being.

And so, from a frozen box of fish and potatoes from IKEA, we learned about a traditional Swedish dish — one that is listed in Sweden’s official culture and tourism website and an “absolute legend on the Swedish Christmas table” according to The Huffington Post Food Blog. We traced the species in question to the European sprat (Sprattus sprattus), a schooling marine fish of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean averaging 5 inches (13 cm) in length, with more than 300,000 metric tons caught commercially each year (Whitehead 1985; Eero 2012). A species known in various languages as skarpsill, brisling, papalina, esprot, spratto, and çaça, then in the 18th Century was among the many creatures cataloged by Carl Linneaus — the father of modern biological taxonomy and a celebrated Swede.

We also learned that Janssons frestelse doubles as a great late-night snack if you’re war-weary after an intoxicating campaign defeating regiments of schnapps and other spirits — but also that you should engage in such blandmissbruk only sparingly, for one would do well to remember the Swedish ethos of lagum — moderation and humility for the sake of the society. And that lagum isn’t something one attempts — it is a state of being.

So let us meditate on that, and on these visions of Janssons frestelse across the globe:

Sprat (Sprattus sprattus) from the Southern North Sea. (Image Credit: Hans Hillewaert/Wikimedia Commons)

Sprattus sprattus (Linnaeus, 1758)
European Sprat (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Clupeiformes (Herrings, Anchovies and allies)
Family Clupeidae (Herrings)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/1357

Citations

Eero, M. Reconstructing the population dynamics of sprat (Sprattus sprattus balticus) in the Baltic Sea in the 20th century. 2012. ICES Journal of Marine Science. doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fss051

Linneaus, C. 1758. Systema naturae per regna tria naturae :secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. 10th Edition.

Whitehead, PJP. FAO species catalogue Vol. 1.7. Clupeoid fishes of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of the herrings, sardines, pilchards, sprats, anchovies and wolfherrings. Part 1 – Chirocentridae, Clupeidae and Pristigasteridae. FAO Fisheries Synopsis. No. 125 Volume 1.7 Part l. Rome, FAO. 1985. 303p.

– Ben Young Landis

Loup de mer (Dicentrarchus labrax). (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis)

My local brasserie hosts a French conversation happy hour each week, and “animals” was the theme of our most recent session.

Our linguistic ark covered the land, air and sea:  renard is fox, lapin is rabbit, canard is duck, dindon is a tom turkey, and so forth. When we reached les poissons, one name stood out: loup de mer — the “wolf of the sea”.

The European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) is another classic fish of Europe, known by a multitude of names. Loup de mer and bar commun are among its French names, while in German it is the Europäischer Wolfsbarsch. In Spain it can be listed as lubina or róbalo, and in Greek, Hebrew and Turkish, the names lavráki, lavrak, and levrek refer to the same fish, respectively.

In the United States of late, many restaurants have taken to adapting its Italian moniker — branzino, or branzini in plural, alternatively spelled bronzino and bronzini. According to the Italian Wikipedia, branzino is used in northern Italy, whereas spigola is used in peninsular Italy, ragno in Tuscany, and pesce lupo elsewhere.

In fact, we can find this fish in the same 1st Century Roman mosaic where we found the previously discussed dorade royale — and also in the most recent season of Mad Men, where Don Draper’s paramour Sylvia Rosen orders it at an Italian restaurant.

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Sylvia Rosen (Linda Cardellini) in the U.S. television series “Mad Men”, preparing to dine on steak diavolo and branzino in the sixth season episode “The Collaborators”. (Image Credit: AMC/Lionsgate)

A mosaic found in House VIII.2.16 in Pompeii. The European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) is at the bottom center of the image. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Dicentrarchus labrax, known as lavraki in Greek. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

The European seabass is native to the eastern Atlantic Ocean, north to Norway and south to Senegal and the Canary Islands, and the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea on the interior.

It is an extremely adaptable fish, capable of tolerating  temperatures from 41 degrees to 82 degrees Fahrenheit (4 to 28 degrees Celsius) and a wide range of salinity. As a result, loup de mer can be found in cold, coastal waters as deep as 320 feet (100 meters), though more often in shallower, inshore waters and estuaries.

I was able to buy whole bronzini at my local fishmonger in California, which sourced it from an aquaculture company in Cyprus. The bronzino is considered by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as the most important commercial fish widely cultured in Mediterranean areas, with Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Croatia and Egypt the biggest producers as of 2006.

Branzini sold at a California fishmonger. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Bronzino served as nigiri sushi at a Japanese restaurant. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis)

With monikers like “wolf of the sea” and wolfsbarsch, it should come as no surprise that the European seabass is a predator, feasting on other fish as adults and on shrimp and other invertebrates as juveniles. Indeed, the European seabass is a prized target of sportsfishers, with maximum records of 3 feet (1 meter) and 26 pounds (12 kilograms).

A large European seabass caught off of Morocco. (Image Source: Sabon Abdel/www.theangler-gpc.com)

From branzini to loup de mer, I’ve thrown around a number of international names hereabouts, but let us end with a look at its English name: seabass.

“Sea bass” in itself is one of the most confusing and more abused names in seafood. It can mean different fish to different people, or worse, it is used as a “garbage pail” word to describe a unfamiliar fish to unsuspecting customers, typically in an exchange like this:

Waiter: “Our special for this evening is a [insert random fish name], pan-seared and served with fingerling potatoes and asparagus.”

Me: “What’s a [insert random fish name]?”

Waiter: “It’s a sea bass.”

That explains nothing, if you don’t already know what a sea bass is, or have a completely different mental image of a sea bass than the other person.

European seabass served at a café in Barcelona, Spain. (Image Credit: Itai Shelem)

So let’s review a few commonly encountered “sea basses”.

Our fish — loup de mer, branzino, Dicentrarchus labrax — is a species in Family Moronidae, which are more accurately (though rather unexcitingly) known as the “temperate basses” due to their known range in temperate-climate waters. The temperate basses can be found on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean, and North American anglers will recognize the freshwater species white bass (Morone chrysops) and yellow bass (Morone mississippiensis), and the well-known coastal species striped bass (Morone saxatilis) or “striper”.

So for North American readers, the best and most correct way to describe our fish would be “it’s a European relative of striped bass”.

Beyond this comparison, the world of “sea basses” starts to get confusing.

• Chefs and saltwater anglers in the Atlantic U.S. will recognize the black sea bass (Centropristis striata) — which belong in Family Serranidae, the sea basses and groupers. This is an extraordinarily diverse group with 500-plus species found in tropical and temperate seas worldwide, and the group that can most appropriately be called “sea basses”.
• Chefs and saltwater anglers in the Pacific U.S. will encounter the name white seabass (Atractoscion nobilis). But as we discussed in an earlier Better Know a Fish entry, the white seabass or corvina blanca is actually a drum fish in Family Sciaenidae, and not related to either temperate or sea basses. At this point, the use of “sea bass” is a matter of convenience for familiarity.
• Which brings us to the worst offender — the Chilean seabass (Dissostichus eleginoides), a fish whose name is entirely an enterprising invention. Now a popular and rather expensive fish, “Chilean seabass” was coined by an American fish merchant in 1977 to market an otherwise undesired and accidentally caught species from sub-Antarctic waters. Belonging to Family Nototheniidae, this bottom-dwelling, long-living deepwater fish was originally called “Patagonia toothfish” — and with a face that only an ichthyologist would love, it bears zero resemblance to sea basses and temperate basses.

There are many more “sea basses” out there, referring to various species depending on the geographic region, appropriately used for some and egregiously misused for others. But this short list shows that in some ways, it may be quite useful to refer to a fish by its native, non-English names.

You could probably ask for branzino or loup de mer at a good fish market or seafood restaurant, and likely receive the correct fish or at least told it isn’t offered — and if they have zero idea what you’re talking about, at least you won’t be duped into buying something different (although you should probably find a new market/restaurant).

But imagine if you simply asked for “sea bass” — heaven knows what you might actually be getting.

The lupine head of Dicentrarchus labrax, the European seabass. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Pan-seared loup de mer with oven-roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts. (Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Dicentrarchus labrax (Linnaeus, 1758)
European Seabass (click for names in other languages)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Moronidae (Temperate Basses)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/63

– Ben Young Landis

Two slices of onagadai (Etelis coruscans) brushed with soy sauce, flanked by pollock roe to the left and salmon roe to the right. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

[We return with a visit to the sushi bar...]

“I always enjoy learning from you, chef,” I said to the man behind the sushi bar. The Japanese man smiled back, and cocked his head briefly in a polite, acknowledging nod.

“And I wish I had more customers like you,” he replied. Then his head of tussled, bleached-blond hair bowed to focus on the next dish at hand, and my head bowed to the bowl of of chriashizushi before me.

Chirashizushi. (Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

I make a regular pilgrimage to this chef — who has a preference for privacy and does not like his name used, a preference I gladly respect for all the wonderful tastings and conversations he has shared on all my visits.

I would make my usual order of chirashizushi — a medley of sliced fish fillets (sashimi) and shellfish over a bowl of sushi rice. It  is a convenient way to taste a variety of fish species, and a chance for the chef to sneak in a sample of the rare or unusual.

This week, the extra treat was onagadai or onaga, the deepwater longtail red snapper (Etelis coruscans).

Etelis coruscans, the onaga. (Image Source: Guide to the Coastal Resources of Guam, Vol 1. The Fishes.)

The species was described to Western science by French zoologist Achille Valenciennes, who writes in 1862:

L’ételis flamme… is a large and beautiful fish, which the fishermen of Réunion call le Vivaneau flamme, because of the vivid and brilliant red color which it is painted.

Flamme means flame,  and vivaneau is a French name for fishes in the family Lutjanidae, the snappers. The snappers are more than 100 species of predatory fish found in tropical and subtropical waters worldwide, with many species common in recreational and commercial fisheries, such as the red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) commonly traded in the East Coast of the United States.

The name “snapper” can be particularly confusing in the United States, because on the West Coast it can be erroneously used for rockfishes (Sebastes spp.), another group of commonly sold food fishes.

Vivaneau la flamme (Etelis coruscans), caught by the New Caledonia fishing vessel Black Shark. (Image Source: http://www.black-shark-nc.com)

True snappers live in different depths, depending on the species. Some are found in mangrove forests, estuaries and shallow coral reefs, while others are found in deeper waters. The onaga, for example, are caught in depths 600 to 1,000 feet (180-300 m), and up to 1,400 feet (450 m) in some places.

“That’s why it’s so expensive,” the chef said, interrupting my admiring gaze at the fillets. A subtle, winking boast of his pleasure to share such a prize.

You can tell that onaga prefer a certain depth of water by its red color and large eyes. These are common traits in fish that are active at night or in depths where little sunlight penetrates.

The red wavelengths of sunlight are the first to be absorbed by water and lost with increasing depths. Animals with red coloring will appear as dark blue instead, blending into the surrounding waters. Large eyes allow the creatures themselves to sense whatever sunlight remains available, as well as any bioluminescence — biochemically generated light. And scientists are only beginning to understand how fish reflect and sense ultraviolet light — the entirely foreign language of biofluorescence, undetectable by human eyes.

The large eyes of the onaga (Etelis coruscans). (Image Source: mitchssushi.com)

Onaga and hamadai are the names for Etelis coruscans in Japan. The species can be found elsewhere in the Western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is also well-known in the Hawaiian Islands, where the traditional name is ‘ula’ula koa’e — “the red snapper with the tail like a tropicbird” (Titcomb 1972).

This onaga in my chirashizushi was from Hawaii, said the chef. “The ones from Japan would be way too expensive.”

I smiled and thanked him again, bowing my head. And onward the onaga went, into other depths.

Onaga (Etelis coruscans) caught in Hawaii. (Image Source: gyotakumaui.com)

From which an onaga begins. A snapper larva measuring 3.9 mm (0.15 in), possibly belonging to Etelis coruscans or Etelis carbunculus. (Image Credit: NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center)

Etelis coruscans Valenciennes, 1862
Onaga
Click for names in other languages (FishBase)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Lutjanidae (Snappers)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/1385

Citations

Amesbury, S.S., and R.F. Myers.  2001.  Guide to the Coastal Resources of Guam, Vol 1.  The Fishes. www.uog.edu/marinelab/fish/thefishes.html.

Titcomb, M. 1972. Native use of fish in Hawaii. University of Hawaii Press. 175p.

Valenciennes, A. 1862. Description de quelques espèces nouvelles de poissons envoyées de Bourbon par M. Morel, directeur du Muséum d’Histoire naturelle de cette île. Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences v. 54: 1165-1170; (suite) 1201-1207.

— Ben Young Landis

O, Facebook. That tar-pit of humanity. Drawing in every speck of dirt and whimsy blowing by, sucking us in and draining our mortal life. A dark, mirror pond of selfies, foodstuff, engagement rings, and baby beings (human and otherwise), forever tempting new victims into its depths.

But it can be a great place to score new fish photos from friends.

Clinton, a fellow writer, is notorious among our circles for his photo posts. Selfies in the dentist’s chair. Selfies at the salon at the shampoo sink. The socks of the day. The necktie of the day.

I jest in fondness — Clinton’s posts are hilarious, and he is particularly interactive whilst traveling, posting questions to us live on the road then getting crowdsourced advice back, not to mention taking requests for scenes for snapshots.

So it was when I saw that he was traveling to Peru on business. Naturally, I requested fish photos. And naturally, my wish was granted:

Pseudoplatystoma tigrinum and P. fasciatum for sale at a fishmonger’s booth at the Belen Market in Iquitos, Peru. (Image Copyright: Clinton Colmenares; used with permission)

Clinton writes:

I took these photos at the Belen Market in the Belen district of Iquitos, Peru. Iquitos is the largest city in the world that’s not accessible by road. Belen is an especially poor and rough barrio in Iquitos.

The market makes practically everything available, from vegetables to fresh meat (pick your own chicken, or grub worm) and fish to outdated antibiotics that haven’t been on the market for years and portions that portend to cure everything from low libido to cancer.

There are, no doubt, other commodities for sale, of which I did not partake.

Nor did Clinton partake in the wares of this fishmonger’s table: specimens of the catfish genus Pseudoplatystoma, known as the sorubim or surubíes.

Sorubim species are strikingly marked in coloration. Two species can be seen in Clinton’s photo:

Pseudoplatystoma tigrinum and P. fasciatum for sale at a fishmonger’s booth at the Belen Market in Iquitos, Peru. (Image Copyright: Clinton Colmenares; used with permission)

Based on the markings — and assuming the fish were actually caught near Iquitos – the three specimens on the left would seem to be the tiger sorubim (Pseudoplatystoma tigrinum).

The lone specimen to the right would seem to be the barred sorubim (Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum) — alternatively Pseudoplatystoma punctifer, depending on the taxonomic study tackling the matter (see Buitrago-Suárez and Burr 2007 versus Carvalho-Costa et al. 2011).

Pseudoplatystoma tigrinum above and P. punctifer/fasciatum below, taken from the Amazon River near Iquitos, Perú. (Image Credit: Brooks M. Burr/Magnolia Press)

The sorubim species haunt various river basins in tropical South America, and their colloquial names vary by location and language. Local names listed for the tiger sorubim include tigre zúngaro in Peru; surubim tigre and pintado in Brazil; bagre rayado in Ecuador and elsewhere; and one assumes a smattering of indigenous names. In the U.S. aquarium hobby trade, some sorubim species are labeled as “tiger shovelnose catfish” — recognizing their distinctive flattened snouts and markings.

That they are even considered home aquarium fish is astounding. These catfish grow into gigantic predatory gamefish – the tiger sorubim has a maximum recorded length of 1.3 meters (4.25 feet), while another species, the spotted sorubim (P. corruscans; video below) has recorded maximums of 1.6 meters (5.45 feet) and 100 kilograms (220 pounds).

The sorubim are also highly prized commercial foodfish — to the point that fillets from other species have been sold and passed off as sorubim.

One study conducted DNA analysis on 33 fillets and 30 whole fish being sold as surubim across supermarkets in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and found more than half did not belong to sorubim species (Carvalho et al. 2007). Those fillets belonged to non-Pseudoplatystoma catfish species — including a marine catfish from Asia — and some even belonged to an entirely different group of fishes, the drums.

And what of the whole fish being sold? All of them were genetically confirmed to belong to Pseudoplatystoma species, mixed between the tiger sorubim and the spotted sorubim. Hard to fake a whole fish.

Farmed Pseudoplatystoma fillets distributed by Acme Markets. (There’s a supermarket chain called Acme Markets??) (Image Credit: Albertsons, LLC)

It looks like, however, that people are looking after the sorubim.

While searching for sorubim videos on YouTube, I found a Colombian news station story on how police had confiscated a shipment of undersized sorubim — in this case P. magdaleniatum, a species found only in the Magdalena River in Colombia:

I also found a nice two-part news story showcasing a spotted sorubim farm in Brazil — a fantastic sequence showing how these surubim pintado are raised from tiny fry and grown in large ponds to market size, before finally heading off to the processing plant:

I love that they have a giant statue of a sorubim in front of their fish farm (jump to the 10:35 mark).

So thanks again, Clinton, for granting my Facebook photo wish. It was one snapshot out of many from your trip to Peru — but one that helped us better know a fish.

Now please take a selfie with this blogpost.

Pseudoplatystoma tigrinum  (Valenciennes, 1840)
Tiger Sorubim
Click for names in other languages (FishBase)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Siluriformes (Catfishes)
Family Pimelodidae (Long-whiskered Catfishes)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/8695

Citations

Buitrago-Suárez, UA, BM Burr. 2007. Taxonomy of the catfish genus Pseudoplatystoma Bleeker
(Siluriformes: Pimelodidae) with recognition of eight species. Zootaxa 1512: 1-38

Carvalho, DC, DAP Neto, BSAF Brasil, DAA Oliveira. 2011. DNA barcoding unveils a high rate of mislabeling in a commercial freshwater catfish from Brazil. Mitochondrial DNA 22(S1): 97-105. doi: 10.3109/19401736.2011.588219

Carvalho-Costa, LF, NM Piorski, SC Willis, PM Galetti Jr, G Ortí. 2011. Molecular systematics of the neotropical shovelnose catfish genus Pseudoplatystoma Bleeker 1862 based on nuclear and mtDNA markers. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 59: 177-194. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2011.02.005

— Ben Young Landis

Hyperoglphe japonica, the Pacific barrelfish or medai. Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

“And also tonight we have bluenose.”

The name caught my ear. I had never heard of such a fish. Yet here was the chef listing it as part of today’s specials, to the sushi bar patron to the right of me.

Time to google. The cell signal was poor in this elegantly refitted, brick-walled building, and the photos loaded slowly.

I held up the phone. “Sensei, is this the fish?”

The Google.

“Yeah, looks like that!”

Bluenose, the Google explained, referred to Hyperoglyphe antarctica, which is being marketed as “bluenose sea bass” (ah, sea bass, that pesky catch-all term again) or “Antarctic butterfish”, while FishBase listed its United Nations records name as “bluenose warehou”.

“In Japanese, we call it me-dai. We got this from Kyushu.”

Kyushu is the third largest island of Japan, located to the nation’s southwest, and close to the Korean Peninsula. Kyushu city names that might be familiar to American ears include Kumamoto—source of the famed oyster species—and Nagasaki—site of the second atomic attack in human history.

But the Kyushu location threw my original identification in doubt. The listed localities for “bluenose” are in the Southern Hemisphere, in the seas off of South America, southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

So when eating Japanese, speak as the Japanese. Another Google search—this time including the Japanese name, medai—turned up the correct identity for the sashimi now presented before me.

Hyperoglyphe japonica at the Izu Mido Sea Paradise aquarium. Image Source: seapara.jp

Medai is the Japanese name for Hyperoglyphe japonica, a very close relative of the bluenose—and as you can see, they are very similar in appearance. Medai, however, are only found in the seas around Japan.

The words medai is written in kanji characters as 目鯛, with “me-” (目) meaning “eye” and “-dai” (鯛) being the term in Japanese for snappers and porgies, but also as a general term for other similarly shaped fish (see previous stories on ishidai and onaga-dai).

“Eye” of course is referring to the large, round, doll-like eyes of this sleek but otherwise generic-looking fish:

The name “medai” refers to the relatively large eyes of the species, Hyperoglyphe japonica. Image Source: pomkn.cocolog-nifty.com

Taxonomically, medai and bluenose are not snappers nor porgies, but their generic-looking bodies belie some pretty strange things about the group they do belong to.

Medai and bluenose belong to the Family Centrolophidae–known as the medusafishes and barrelfishes in English. They’re called this because as young fish, many species hide under drifting seaweed or floating debris like barrels—while other species live among the bells and tentacles of jellyfish (or “medusa” as they are called classically, as if jellyfish were the mythical medusa’s head of deadly hair, drifting about the sea without a body).

And so these baby fish float out in the open sea, growing up in these mobile nurseries, feeding on different critters in the debris. The juveniles have cartoonishly large, snub-nosed heads, until they grow larger and stretch out into more “fishy” shapes, at which time they swim down to deeper waters to live. Medai can grow to 3 feet (90 cm) and are found around in depths of 500 feet (150m) or more.

As adults, medai do retain that snub-nosed look—a look that unites a broader group of fishes they belong to, the Stromateoidei. Ichthyologist Richard L. Haedrich, in his 1967 review of this odd taxonomic group, writes with a wink about their shared facial bone structure:

There is no mistaking the “stromateoid look”…once recognized, the stromateoid expression is not likely to be forgotten. It is a fat-nosed, wide-eyed, stuffed up look, smug and at the same time apprehensive. Some stromateoids might even be accused of a certain prissiness.

Haedrich’s review (which, for you fish geeks out there, is a great piece of natural history writing) mentions the other characteristic uniting this taxonomic group: they all have a “pharyngeal sac” in the back of their throat.

Imagine if you had a little fleshy sac in the back of your throat, filled with soft teeth like a cat’s tongue, which chewed up your food a little before you swallowed it. That’s what all these stromatoid fishes have, to different extents: medai have less toothy sacs, while other stromateoids have more complexly toothed sacs (Doiuchi and Nakabo 2006).

What was this sac originally evolved for? This appears to still be an unanswered question, since the diet of stromateoid fishes are not well known. Ironically, jellyfish might also be the answer here. Haedrich speculates:

Shelter is not all the jellyfish provide. Many stromateoids have been observed actively feeding on their hosts…the diagnostic pharyngeal sacs of stromateoids may have been perfected partially in response to this sort of diet.

As in somehow, this pre-chewing process facilitates digestion of jellyfish tissue, as one presumes that the gelatinous and often toxin-injecting tissue of jellies might be a little hard on a stomach, unprocessed.

Speaking of chewing, I’ve probably fed you more science than you can digest in one sitting. I certainly learned a lot from this happenstance introduction to a new species, let alone getting into all the strange details of a whole group of fishes. Of course, I also enjoyed tasting medai sashimi for the first time—it has a delicate but firmly muscled texture like that of snapper and other tai, but has a more buttery, sweeter taste more akin to hamachi and other fishes of the jack family (in fact, medai is sometimes passed off as higher-priced species like hamachi by dishonest merchants; see Iguchi et al. 2012).

Now let’s go catch some medai.

A 6kg medai caught off of Hachijō-jima. Image source: gyoshin.jp

Hyperoglphe japonica, the Pacific barrelfish or medai. Image Credit: Ben Young Landis/CC-BY)

Hyperoglyphe japonica (Döderlein, 1884)
Medai
Click for names in other languages (FishBase)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Centrolophidae (Medusafishes and Barrelfishes)

FishBase Page: http://www.fishbase.org/summary/13043

Citations

Haedrich, RL. 1967. The stromateoid fishes: systematics and a classifcation. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 135(2): 31-139.

Iguchi, J, Y Takashima, A Namikoshi, M Yamashita. Species identification method for marine products of Seriola and related species. Fisheries Science 78(1): 197-206. doi: 10.1007/s12562-011-0433-9

Doiuchi, R, T Nakabo. 2006. Molecular phylogeny of the stromateoid fishes (Teleostei: Perciformes) inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences and compared with morphology-based hypotheses. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 39(1): 111-123. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2005.10.007

— Ben Young Landis

I have my cable company to thank for a fantastic fish story involving the Vietnam War, college basketball, a chance storm, and a country boy named “Red”.

And it wasn’t because of a T.V. show.

Allow me to set the scene…

* * *

I was tired. I had been traveling for a couple of weeks, and all I could do on this Monday night was sit in front of the television, and turn off my brain.

Of course, in the United States, most programs and channels will literally erase all logic and intelligence from your nervous system. The overabundance of arcane reality shows and poorly staged dialog. The endless blather of hyperbolic news pundits and home-shopping salespersons — although at the least, the sales hosts can be commended for their energy and patience to improv ways to say “buy this thing now!” And supposedly edgy comedies which ignore the rule that sarcasm and irony work best when applied sparingly and strategically.

So that is how I came to be staring at the screensaver channel of my cable T.V. service.

“Dude, I can’t believe we’re BOTH going to be in Star Wars.” Image via AT&T U-Verse.

Flipping through channel after channel, I was stopped by these beautiful underwater scenes. The requisite shots of cute little clownfish snuggling in sea anemones, a sea turtle gliding over a reef, and schools of anthias and butterflyfishes.

As the montages drifted in and out, repeating on loop over the elevator music track, my eyes kept lingering on this assemblage of large-eyed, pink-bodied fishes.

What the heck are these things? I said to myself.

They floated languidly. Enormous eyes peering back at me through the LCD screen.

“Bigeyes” was the name that sprang to my mind, a group of fishes classified under Family Priacanthidae.

And they have very big eyes. That was the extent of my knowledge about these fish.

So, as I do in these cases of unfamiliar fish, I headed to Google Scholar to look up original research articles about that family. I also needed to guess at what species of bigeyes were swimming on my T.V.

In zoology, scientists write a variety of research papers. Some papers describe individual new species, previously unknown to the scientific community. Some describe the ecology, behavior, or genetics of a particular creature.

Every once in a while, an intrepid scientist — usually someone with a lot of patience and passion — writes a monograph. These are often solo efforts where the author picks a particular group of organisms — often a family or genus — and compiles every piece of information possible about that group. Monographs are meant to be an exhaustive review of everything we currently understand about this group of animals: how they reproduce, where they live, what they eat, how many species there are of them and whether they all actually belong to that unique group. Not to mention their role in our ecosystem, what their evolutionary history might be, and the potential threats to their future survival. They’re epic works in their own right.

There weren’t a lot of published studies on bigeyes. But my eyes picked out a prize from the search returns:

REVISION, PHYLOGENY AND BIOGEOGRAPHIC COMMENTS ON THE CIRCUMTROPICAL MARINE PERCOID FISH FAMILY PRIACANTHIDAE
Wayne C. Starnes, 1988

A monograph on bigeyes! Even better, the document itself was available as a digital document — all 87 pages worth — and was free to download.

It was exactly what I was looking for. Bigeye physiology was discussed, along with color photos and distribution maps for each species. There were electron microscope photographs showing the bizarre spikes that dotted the body scales of bigeyes — a unique characteristic. Plus an illustration of a larval bigeye, which looked comically disproportioned — even bigger eyes on a tiny body.

It suddenly occurred to me that I might be able to contact the author himself. Who better to share a few quotes about bigeyes than the person who wrote the definitive review?

I managed to find an online bio for Wayne C. Starnes, who turned out to be the Research Curator of Fishes for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences — a beautiful building in Raleigh which I have had the pleasure to visit. “He retired from this position in 2014,” the bio read, and listed his email address.

I decided to write Starnes with a few questions. Could he confirm my guess that these specimens were Priacanthus hamrur, the moontail bullseye? And what are those big eyes for, and why was he drawn to write an entire treatise on this taxonomic family? And as I usually do when interviewing fish biologists, I included this question: “What got you interested in fish in the first place?”

Two hours later, Starnes wrote back.

Image via AT&T U-Verse.

His email read:

Ben — I think you are probably correct on the identification of the photo individuals but I’ll study them further. Do you know where they are from?

I’ll need to get back to you on the rest of it in a couple days, as I’m behind on a couple projects, plus an ms review, and getting the house painted before it’s too cold to apply the paint.

If you don’t hear in a couple days, shoot me a ping as a reminder. All for now.

-W-

I replied and explained the underwhelming reality that all I had were screen captures from this random stock footage my cable company happened to show, and thus had no clue to the location of this clip. I added my gratitude, and looked forward to his reply.

A week later, Starnes wrote back.

He agreed that my suggestion of Priacanthus hamrur, the moontail bullseye, was probably a best guess for the fish in the footage, absent any other clues. There weren’t any other fish species in the scene, which could have helped narrowed the geographic possibiliies. And we both admitted not knowing our coral species well enough to use that to our advantage.

As for the eyes, Starnes says these fishes are primarily nocturnal and hang out in dark recesses much of the time. “Though some species are occasionally taken in trawl fisheries, indicating they do make some forays away from structure, maybe primarily at night,” he wrote. “It is assumed that the large eyes and reflective properties are connected with making the best use of the reduced available light and that they can forage on invertebrates, etc., that become active at that time.”

And then, Starnes began to tell his story. This was just the start of his 2,000-word email reply — and I read every word with amazement.

I was drawn to bigeyes via a series of influences, I guess. First off, having been primarily a freshwater-oriented ichthyologist, I wanted to expand my horizons into the marine realm a bit. This was when I was still in grad school, working on the taxonomy and ecology of freshwater fishes, such as minnows and darters, etc.

He continued:

Anyway, I happened to acquire a single bigeye (P. arenatus) from a shrimper during a coastal collecting trip to South Carolina. It was a beautiful fish and piqued my interest and I decided to look into the group.  In consultation with my later good friend and colleague, Jack Randall at the Univ. of Hawaii, an expert on reef fishes worldwide, I learned he was of the opinion there was probably undescribed diversity in the group, and [I] decided to take it on as a gradual side project, even after I left grad school at the Univ. of Tenn. and eventually worked at various gigs in the Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian for nearly 14 years.

Working as such, it took about ten years and exactly 1,000 (by sheer coincidence) examined specimens to fathom the group’s diversity, synonym, etc., and even then some questions remained due to insufficient materials, etc.

Those 87 pages took him ten years to compile and complete. Starnes added that he has continued to work on bigeyes, with Japanese coauthors as well as contributing to a few United Nations reports, and has described several new species of bigeyes.

Then, Starnes explained his path to a career in ichthyology — in a tale filled with twists and coincidences enough for three fingers of Tennessee whiskey and a warm fire to listen by.

Image via AT&T U-Verse.

Starnes began:

As for the happenstance of my becoming an ichthyologist, I can’t imagine there are many folks that got there via a less parsimonious and serendipitous route! The following are a set of circumstances and events, any one of which had not occurred, or maybe even just changed by a couple minutes, I might have been in a whole different career.

He opened with his childhood in Tennessee:

First off, predictably enough, I was fascinated by things aquatic as a child and spent every minute I could catching stuff from streams, ponds, etc., plus fishing. I was fortunate to grow up near a creek in east Tennessee, where I probably spent a thousand hours or more roaming, etc.

In high school, I became more of jock and a nature boy and, plus there was a bit of stigma to the latter in those days (before Nat. Geo, Nature, NOVA, etc., were ever heard of to make it a bit cooler). I drifted away from the critters for a few years (except fishing) and worked my way thru University of Tennessee, earning a degree in Transportation in 1969. Viet Nam was in full swing and I received an ROTC commission into the Army to serve as a lieutenant. By this time, I’ve still never had a single college biology course.

Starnes then turned the clock back to those college days:

As it happens, I was a decent enough basketball player to play on a team of former UT players in municipal league, charity events, etc., [having been] recommended by a former high school rival who was an All-American at UT. Another fellow on the team (former UT team captain) was, too, an avid fisherman, and we began to cut a few classes (e.g., I despised Accounting) and fish together, etc. (The former rival fellow, who scoffed at fishing at the time, dubbed me “Fish”, a name that stuck for a lot of years.)

A turn to sports could not avert Starnes from his fate as an ichthyologist, having found a basketball teammate as a fishing buddy. Now, a southern storm would blow Starnes towards another nexus of events:

One spring day my fishing buddy, his girlfriend, and I decided to rent a boat from a dock on a reservoir near Knoxville.

The owner, named “Red”, was a crusty sort right out of Hee Haw, including the overalls, etc. As he puttered out to fetch the boat from a float it was tied to, a storm was threatening more by the minute. When he returned to the dock, we asked him, “Red, if we head out and a storm hits and we have to return, do we have to pay for the whole day?” His reply was: “If you leave the dock, it’s ten dollars!”

Well, $10 was a lot of dough to someone working thru college in 1968. We thought about it for a minute and decided to, OK, give it a shot.

As we went up to the car to get our gear, the storm became closer, rain and lightening were coming in, etc. So we just looked at each other and said, “naah”, threw our gear in the trunk and tore out of there, spinning and throwing gravel up the drive. Turning back, I saw Red standing, rope in hand, totally agape at the end of the dock. I began laughing uncontrollably to the point I was even incontinent for a second. I’ll never forget that image.

Well, within 15 minutes, the storm blew over and, at this time, we happened to be right next to Douglas Dam on our way back to Knoxville. We thus decided to just pull over an fish off the bank downstream from the dam for a few minutes. The flow was very low and Sauger were apparently running upriver and we proceeded to slay them, about filled the trunk.

After so much success, we looked at each other and said “what the hell are we going to do with all these fish”, neither of us having ready access to a kitchen. We then got the bright idea to go to another UT player’s (a year behind us and still playing) apartment, which was in a married students’ complex.

There we would have a helluva fish fry! As we opened the trunk and started unloading the catch, a small crowd gathered. Among them, who just happened to walk out at that minute, was a grad student in Aquatic Biology at UT who was much impressed with the fish, etc., started throwing around some scientific names, etc.

I was drawn by this, got to talking and, long story short, starting going on field trips with him all over TN and nearby states for the rest of my undergrad days, learning a great deal about the regional fauna, etc., by just picking it up in the field. If you don’t know, TN is one of the absolute candy stores of fish and other aquatic diversity.

With college near completion, the Vietnam War loomed on Starnes’ horizon.

Despite this experience and what seemed an obvious knack for fishes, etc., I never seriously considered changing majors at that late date and, besides, I had to meet my commissioning date or face consequences. There was just not time to make any changes, even if I had decided to. I kept the interest up and it ate at me more and more that I might like fishes as a career, though was unsure how very many folks could make a living at it (not an altogether unfounded concern…).

My second year in the military, I was in Nam, and, on a particularly bad day during Tet 71, I had the epiphany that, if I got out alive, you only live once, and I would go back and somewhat start over in a whole new pursuit.

So, I did that, with a combination of GI Bill, working at a textbook store quite a few hours a week, and some assistantships here and there along the way. It took a while to be accepted into Zoology, as they had a rather jaundiced eye toward my Business undergrad major, grades that had suffered from fishing forays, etc. but I finally prevailed.

So you see, “encounters and experiences”, not to mention nuances, were critical in how I got here. Just think, if I had not been into basketball, had not known that player, later met my fishing buddy, and Red [had not] been such an ass, and that storm had not come up just as it did and pass by, and the Sauger had not been biting, and that other basketball player had not lived in that apartment complex with that grad student neighbor, and that neighbor had not walked out at just that moment, I might have spent a career working for SeaLand or somewhere! A couple minutes either way could have steered my ship on another course.

I may have at least had an aquarium, though….

Ichthyologist Wayne C. Starnes holding a robust redhorse (Moxostoma robustum) from the Pee Dee River. (Image courtesy of W.C. Starnes)

And that is how Wayne C. Starnes began his career in fish biology — and how the Vietnam War, basketball, a storm-interrupted fishing trip, and a good ol’ boy named Red eventually led to a monograph on the Family Priacanthidae.

Starnes would go on to receive his Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1977 — and it’s been fishes ever since. He says it’s been a great ride. Over the course of his career, he’s had opportunities to work all over the United States, in South and Central America, as well as in Thailand, Samoa, and Puerto Rico. He says he is proud of his work on a major project with endangered fishes in the Colorado River basin, and of his work as a coauthor on The Fishes of Tennessee, the reference on the fish fauna of the Volunteer State.

I’ll let Dr. Starnes have the last word:

Well, that turned out to be a rather fat nutshell, but hopefully you could track it. Sorry for the delays, but retirement hasn’t proven to be much slower than before (and I’m mostly glad of that!).

-W-

A small school of Priacanthus hamrur at the Red Sea. Photo by Alexander Vasenin/CC BY-SA 3.0.

Priacanthus hamrur (Forsskål, 1775)
Moontail Bullseye
Click for names in other languages (FishBase)

Class Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Order Perciformes (Perch-like Fishes)
Family Priacanthidae (Bigeyes and Catalufas)

FishBase Page: http://fishbase.org/summary/5791

Citations

Starnes, WC. 1988. Revision, phylogeny and biogeographic comments on the circumtropical marine percoid fish family Priacanthidae. Bulletin of Marine Science 43(2): 117-203(87).

I am indebted to Dr. Wayne Starnes for taking time out of house painting, manuscript reviews, and the sweet life of retirement to answer an email out of the blue to sake the curiosity of a humble writer. Thank you so much for sharing with us this glimpse into your career — and your love for the fishes.

Starnes’ passages were edited for layout, spelling, and punctuation, with web links added for context. 

Download the PDF version of The Fishes of Tennessee (1993) for free from the University of Tennessee Press.

And thanks to AT&T U-Verse for deciding that random undersea stock footage would be a great backdrop for your OnDemand ads….

— Ben Young Landis