Talk:Fish

Extending breadth of information

I came to Wikipedia looking for information on the extent to which the fishing trade had reduced fish populations and harmed their underwater habitat. "Fish" should be considered the main encyclopedic entry. Should there not be a heading such as "Fishing and its impact on Fish populations", which could have a terse but useful list to a number of other wiki pages that are (surprisingly) not linked to from "Fish". E.g.

Fishing, the hunting of Fish as Food#1 is an ancient and worldwide practice loosely split into Angling (recreational fishing) and Commercial_fishing. Fish contain Omega 3, helpful at preventing heart disease and suggested to aiding general good health, including limiting mental deteriation in old age #2. Unfortunately, human pollution of the seas has led to mercury containation such that pregnant women are advised not to eat many varieties of wild fish. #3

Commercial overfishing has resulted in significant fish population decline, with a third of fish species collapsing to 10% of their original population since 1950 #4. This has prompted Marine_conservation efforts, breeding fish for food in instead of taking from the wild (Aquaculture), FishingQuotas and efforts to ban controversial forms of fishing, such as Whaling.

1. 1. redirect to Fish (Food)
2. 2. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/fishman/2005/fish_brain.html (Hopefully someone can find a more authoritive-seeming reference?)
3. 3. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/parenting/04/12/fish.pregnant/index.html
4. 4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6108414.stm::

What do you people think?? - SigurdMagnusson 21:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a useful addition, and you've provided sources.... so, why didn't you go ahead and add it? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 21:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Cold-blooded?

Most fish are "cold-blooded," meaning that they are incapable of controlling their own body temperature within any siginificant range. Most "warm-blooded" animals maintain an elevated body temperature by seperating cardiac chambers, preventing the mixture of oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood. No fish possesses such circulation. However, certain species may be considered, "warm-blooded," achieving a significant ability to maintain a body temperature higher than their surrounding by using counter currents to efficiently swap deoxygenated blood with oxygenated blood within their gills. I believe tuna have such a system.

imperilled

Actually, I've double-checked since my "correction" of "imperilled", and apparently either way is acceptable, one 'l' or two (single 'l' is listed first, generally meaning it's preferred, but no biggy). So I'm certainly not going to bother to change it back, but just so you know, my speling wasn't wrong either. -- John Owens 07:15 16 May 2003 (UTC)

If you look at Tuna it states that they are cold blooded. Is it true that all fish are Poikilothermic? Huddy 22:16, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)huddy

No, it seems there are just a small number of large fast fish of the open ocean with elevated internal temps. Stan 15:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

numbers

"Fishes (over 27,315 species) are a paraphyletic group and are divided into the bony fishes (class Osteichthyes, 22,000 species); cartilaginous fishes (class Chondrichthyes, 800 species); and various groups of jawless fishes (class Agnatha, 75 species)"

Curious to know, what are the other 4,440 not accounted for there? - MPF 14:24, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The Osteichthyes number is out of date. Stan 15:29, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks; should the numbers be amended? - MPF 14:37, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I just finessed this by rewriting the lead to give Osteichthyes "all the others". Stan 17:45, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I quoted the thing about Great whites being the only "Proper" warm blooded fish to a friend and he challenged me on it, just because it didn't sound right to him. I've done some research on the net and this seems to confirm that Great White have no greater claim to warm bloodedness than the aformantioned tuna, or several other related large shark species, like Mako's and Porbeagles. However, I'm not Icthyologist, so I'm kinda timid about changing it. Are there any Icthyologists here who might know for sure? (reincarnationfish)

Well, I'm new to contributing to Wikipedia, but I am an ichthyologist and I have researched white sharks, so I guess I'm qualified to weigh in here. The previous person is fundamentally correct -- there are several endothermic fishes. White sharks are pretty good at it, but the real champs are probably porbeagle sharks and some of the tunas. It is still open for debate whether these spp. constitute true endotherms or highly specialized poikilotherms. I fall on the side of endothermy, and I think the literature supports that adequately. I hope no one minds -- I am going to make some changes to the web page text. John Kelly (19 Apr 2005)

Evolution of fish

Do you think that adding some info on the evolution of fish would be a good idea? Enochlau 09:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Adding info is always a good idea!Emmett5 00:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Do fish feel pain?

The article needs a new section of this title.

There was a lot of controversy over this and a lot of vegetarians used to eat fish because there was supposed evidence that they didn't feel pain. But then apparently that got overturned.

I'm surprised there's nothing about it here, it was a pretty major thing. o_O Please, anyone help if you can. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 03:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm no ichthyologist, but that seems sort of impossible. If fish have nerve endings at all, they should be able to feel pain. Also, if you can ward off sharks by punching them in the nose, I don't see why they would leave except that you=hurt. Although, in the vegetarians defense, by the time they're eating fish, the fish are (usually) dead, and therefore cannot feel pain. Sir Chocobo 11:03, 15 August 2006

Just having nerve endings doesn't mean you feel pain. There's a variety of mechanisms involved with any sensation, from the nerves to the brain, and there's been a variety of theories and studies done on the matter. Some believe that the fish lack the proper neocortex structure to "feel" pain, so while they respond to "painful" stimuli, they don't "feel" it (it's a reflex, or maybe instinctual self-preservation mechanism like other animals avoiding plants/animals with certain colors). Other studies show elevated levels of pain-indicative things (though I couldn't tell you what off the top of my head), or discredit the "no neocortex" idea. I think a solid conclusion is pretty up in the air at this point, but I'm sure you could find plenty of information out there on the subject. --Xanzzibar 17:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Plants like Mimosas also react directly to outside stimuli by folding their leaves, but no one could reasonably say that they feel pain in any way we could possibly relate to. Even if fish do "feel" pain as a sensation there is still no indication that they would also "suffer" because of this (suffering from pain not quite the same as simply feeling pain). In any instance, whatever they feel (if they even have enough sentience to feel) is probably so fundamentally different from what primates or other mammals experience that it can't be reasonably called pain anymore. --TheOtherStephan 02:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the notion that fish feel pain is pretty well publicised in the academic field now. Lynn Sneddon at University of Liverpool in England has written several articles on this and has been giving guest lectures around the ciruit. Here's a link to her website Lynn Sneddon and an article she has online Can Animals Feel Pain? Ciar 19:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Your linked article pretty much confirms what I said: There are clear responses to painful stimuli, but whether or not they truly "feel" it is still a matter of conjecture. From the article: "In conclusion, it is currently impossible to prove whether animals are capable of emotional pain, but it is equally impossible to disprove it." --Xanzzibar 19:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's impossible to prove another human feels pain, really. Still, he's going to say "ouch" if I poke him with a needle, and he'll describe the sensation as painful, and that's close enough for me. Given other animals can't describe sensations, but certainly act out the rest of the apparent indicators of pain, I see no point in claiming that they don't. The evidence accumulated strongly suggests that they do. Claiming it's less than certain is purest psuedoscience: Everything is less than certain, that's why science works off the best current explanation, not some mythical "what's totally known". --Suttkus 21:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sailfish nominated for SCOTW

I've just nominated the sailfish article as Science Collaboration of the Week. Please visit Wikipedia:Science collaboration of the week and vote for the article. Thanks. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 08:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

How many fish in the sea?

How many fish are there in the sea? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.113.104.47 (talk • contribs) .

There are several ways to answer your question: 1. how many species of fish are there, or 2. how many actual fish are there. To answer the first one, there are almost 30,000 species of fish in the world (although some are freshwater, and thus probably do not live in the sea). The short answer to the second question is, no one knows. This site gives similar information. Determining how many fish of a given species is one of the great challeges to managing a stock of fish. One common method for trying to answer that question is called Mark and recapture. Incidentally, your best bet for asking questions is Wikipedia:Reference desk. Cheers, --Hansnesse 17:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

More on Fish

This article needs more on:

How do fish respirate? How do they keep their blood warm? Not all fishes are oviparous (ex. Whale Shark) etc; all kind of morphology stuff. I may add what little I know.

Classifications

Email received by the Foundation: This is the categorization of FISH. Actinopterygii is listed as a subcategory of Chondrichthyes. On their separate pages, they are both listed as Classes. If this is the case, shouldn't Actinopterygii be a subclass? What's the proper categorization? Your pages don't match.

Are whales fish ?

The question is more complicated than it seems. Your definition of fish relies on two major points : being cold-blooded and having gills. But some fish (the Protopterus or Lungfish) gets only 10% of its oxygen through its reduced gills, and some species of tuna (not only tunas but also other species, as mentionned in the main article and in the above discussion) maintain a temperature which is 20° higher than their surroundings (a fact mentionned in the wiki article on tunas). Still, it is considered without much debate that they're fish. Moreover, what's the rationale for a category containing Chondrictyes, Agnatha and Osteichtyes ; all paraphyletic groups, as mentionned ? Thus, as argued by philosopher John Dupré (in Humans and other Animals), it is highly dubbious that the word 'fish' has any real scientific usage. Whence this question : after all, why can't whales be fish ? It is generaly said that this is because they are mammals. What's the point of this answer ? Why couldn't some animals be mammals AND fish ? Since fish (to say the least) is not a uniform and homogeneous category, we should expect a better reason for ruling this possibility out other than the authority of what is simply said and constantly reassessed.

Fish is a taxonomic classification, requiring such principles as obtaintaing oxygen from water, being aquatic, etc. Fish are all similar to each other, and belong (I think, any more enlightened users are free to correct me) to the same family. Whales are mammals, which is another taxonomic classifaction, requiring warm blood, obtaining oxygen from the air, etc. Whales cannot be fish because fish and whales belong to different taxonomic categories. Great question!Emmett5 01:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Why did someone remove the fish versus fishes section?

The use of fish versus fishes section, which was removed, was a valuable section. Indeed, the American Fisheries Society, for its publication guidelines, laid out very clear guidelines on the use of the terms that was similar to what was there. Some notable authors use fishes as the plural as well. That section helped the reader to understand that "fish" is not the only plural form of the term, which is a common misunderstanding.

Agree, I put it back! Stefan 12:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Under the Fish/Fishes section it reads: 'The collective noun for a random assemblage of fish...', shouldn't it say fishes?

Fish - Anatomy

Can someone tell me if the following is true

Fish have very good eyesight and can see in all directions at the same time

Fish have airbag which help to stay upright

Eyesight depends on the fish. Many fishes have protruding eyes on the side of the head, so they can see all around, but not all do. Flatfish have both eyes on one side of the head, so they certainly can't see in all directions, but since they lie flat on the bottom, it doesn't matter. For many fishes the lateral line is more important.

2nd question: see gas bladder

This article lacks general Fish anatomy. Some facts that apply to most Fishes will be useful. Ecology section and Fishing should be mentioned.

Fish points

Some common misconceptions about fish should be added such as:

i)Do fish sleep?
ii)Do fish defacate or urinate?
iii) Do fish drink (sea/ocean)) water?
iv) Can fish hear?

Deletion.

Vandal caused the page to be unreadable, from what seems to be the conversation in IRC. Could not be RVed, needed some amazing tech delete. --Avillia 00:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed comment on slime from "Classification": put shorter sentence in Fish anatomy article. (Slime is not just for when fish are taken out of water: some fish live so deep that being taken out of water is extremely unlikely, but they are still slimy.) Myopic Bookworm 15:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject on Fish Articles

Does anyone else think there should be a project to improve fish related articles? There are many many articles for different kinds of fish, but those articles are horrible and hardly worthy to be on wikipedia.

If anyone is interested, please help me improve Goldfish. Thanks! QuizQuick 02:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You mean a project like Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes? Stan 06:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Taxon box

Where is it? Falconleaf

"Fish" is not a taxon - the term subsumes several taxonomic groups. The first paragraph says, but with too many long words :-) , should be clarified. Stan 04:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

So shouldn't this article use a taxobox similar to the Goanna one. Have it go up to Tetrapoda, and then under it say, in part. Then have a see text under groups. --liquidGhoul 08:45, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Taxoboxes are for taxa. The "in part" idea is just asking for trouble - add the taxobox, and then other editors will want to "fix" it in one incorrect way or another. Better to think of this as a "disambig page on steroids"; most readers will be content to stop here, but we provide the links should they wish to choose an actual taxon and delve into ToL proper. Stan 13:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Who cares if they want to change it. If it is wrong, it isn't hard to change back. I seriously doubt you would have much trouble in this area. A taxobox is very useful for a quick guide. If someone comes here and sees "in part", it is obvious that it is a broad term for many tetrapods. When you don't see anything, it is confusing (as it is expected), and annoying that you have to read through the text to get info which should be very quickly accessable.

I would like to at least give it a go. If there is lots of confusion, and people want it changed back, then I would oblige. But there is no harm in trialing it. Thanks --liquidGhoul 14:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, it's been tried and deleted at least once - see [1] and adjacent history. Stan 03:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

That example says that it hasn't been tried. It is not what I said, and had many problems associated with it. --liquidGhoul 05:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

OK then, I've given my best advice, what you do with it is up to you. Stan 16:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

You know, I have thought about it, and I agree with you now. Sorry to be a bother. --liquidGhoul 14:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Heads Up

The fish talk page was recently shown on this site[2] (8-bit theatre, for those of you who dont recognize). The article was on a fake wikipedia imitation, Magipedia. It was stated that fish are like plants that move, and I'm just saying that someone is bound to make an edit related to this. Thought you'd like to know.DoomsDay349 04:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I fixed your link to show the correct strip instead of the latest one. Paladinwannabe2 20:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

U r a idoit. LOLOLOLOLOLO ;) - Fëaluinix 12:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Someone already did make an edit related to this. Check the history of the discussion. In "Do fish feel pain?" someone changed the whole thing to "I mean, come on. They're basically moving plants. It's not like they'd be able to calculate the nuances of M-Theory." You have no proof it was me. 13:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC) (DAMN YOU FëALUINIX! YOU BEAT ME TO IT!)

Freakin hilarious to whoever added that little fish mining comment on my message. DoomsDay349 16:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought you did that. You have no proof it was me. 18:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It was kind of funny "How i mine for fish, seriously!" -Hito

Successful groups

The page says, "Fish are the second-most successful group of animals in terms of number of species. Only arthropods are more numerous, partly due to the number of insect species."

This is difficult to support. "Group of animals" is ambiguous at best. Vertebrates are more successful than fish, in that they include fish, for example. It might be better to compare phyla to phyla, order to order, but even there, since none of these groupings are "real" (taxa being a classification convenience), there's really no way to define "group" such that you can make equal comparissons (and fish aren't even a taxonomic grouping, you might as well compare fish to bugs).

Worse for the sentence, there are over 100,000 species of mollusc, making fish, at best, the third most successful "group" of animals. (And a better understanding of nematodes would probably shove them to fourth.) I can't think of any standard of "group" that would leave fish the second most successful.

--Suttkus 15:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Either downgrading to the standard fallback "one of the most" or dropping altogether would be sensible - they're already characterized in the lede as most diverse among vertebrates, and there's really not much point in trying to compare to other taxa. Stan 21:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Definition

The article defines fish as "A fish is a water-dwelling vertebrate with gills, that remains so throughout its life." This fails to exclude several types of amphibians who also remain water-dwelling vertebrates with gills throughout their lives. Examples include Axolotl and mudpuppies. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of a definition of fish that's neither over-inclusive nor too difficult for lay readers.

--Suttkus 21:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Ongoing vandalism

Given this page seems to be under some kind of attack by vandals, wouldn't it be appropriate to semi-protect it? --Suttkus 03:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone explain to me why this article is attacked so often? I mean, it's not like fish is a remotely controversial subject. Yet this page is hit by vandals more often than any page I pay attention to that isn't actually about a pseudoscience. What's up with that? --Suttkus 20:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much all of the one-word common terms get the juvenile one-offs - look at "duck", "ball", etc. This article maybe gets a bit more; perhaps there's some grade-school subculture where the word has taken on new meanings recently. Anyway, going by Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy, this one could be a candidate, doesn't hurt to suggest it. Stan 13:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

References

Which ones supplied which information? There are no in-line citations in this article at all. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps because the obsession with inline citations is of relatively recent origin. Amazingly enough, people were writing well-sourced WP articles for many years before inlines were even implemented. Stan 20:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I know that. It's just a suggestion for an area where this article could be improved. I could have just added fact tags to everything. I only noticed because an IP removed the whole reference section and for a moment I thought it was completely unreferenced. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Links: a suggestion

It seems to me to be insane to have large numbers of aquarium fish links here. All these will do is attract people trying to advertise their forum or club, or worse, their tropical fish store.

What I suggest is that links here be restricted to fish biology from a scientific point of view (i.e., not aquarium fish profiles). Links for fish-related hobbies and industries should be on those particular Wikipedia pages. I created a page Fishkeeping which covers the hobby, and there are a certain number of external links there (though these are constantly being pruned). To be honest, I am getting increasingly aggressive in removing external links, as it seems every club and forum wants to use Wikipedia as an advertisement.

Comments? Neale Monks 09:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and pruned the links. Divided them up into fish science categories, and added "see also" links above to things like fishkeeping and angling. I see no reason to include hobby-oriented links on this page, since we already have fish hobby Wikipedia pages.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 15:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Along those lines, I replaced the guppy image with something a little less hobby oriented. There are probably many other better shots in the commons, this one just seemed to jump out at me. I tried to find a better spot in the article for the guppy pic and caption, but it would just seem to be out of context - I'll try to place it at fishkeeping or aquarium. Kuru ^talk 15:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Life Span

I'm surprised this article doesn't have one of the basic facts about most animals; their lifespan. This article should include the average lifespan of most fish, and then a species of fish that has one of the longest average lifespans, and one that has one of the shortest.

There is no "average" lifespan. You have species that complete their entire lifecycle within a single year (e.g., annual killifish), and many reach sexual maturity within 3-4 months (e.g., guppies). The annual killifish in particular are adapted to survive in temporary streams and pools, where the adults die each year but the eggs survive in the mud until the wet season next year.

On the other hand, there are species that grow extremely slowly (e.g., Anatarctic and deep sea fish) that likely take a decade or more to mature and live lifespans around 30-50 years, with estimates for longevity for some species of Sebastes being in the 90-120 year region. Spiny dogfish are known to live for 70 years, while American and European eels inhabit freshwaters for decades (~40 years) before becoming sexually mature and making their way to the sea for their single breeding event. (For these estimates, see especially p 140 in Helfman et. al., "The Diversity of Fishes", Blackwell Science).

There are broad trends though: big fish tend to live longer than smaller ones, and fish in cold and/or deep water tend to grow more slowly (and therefore live longer) than similar size fish in warmer and/or shallower waters. As a ball-park figure, you could mention the common goldfish when kept in a pond (rather than a bowl) lives for around 20-30 years with the record being over 40 years.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 11:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Fish in culture

I'd like propose this topic to be included. This article is heavily about biology which is good. But there should be some other dimensions too. More than half of the article is spent on fish anatomy and homeothermy, but only two sentences (in the introduction paragraph) mentioned fish in culture. If the rat article has "rats in culture" and the elephant article has "humanity and elephants", maybe this article should have something similar too. --Melanochromis 21:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I touched on this in the intro section, but there should certainly be more. The ichthys symbol is certain one of the best known fish emblems, even more so with all the fun Darwin and whatnot versions you see! Obviously there are all kinds of things that could be included, from Henry Williamson's Salar the Salmon novel through to Jaws. All good stuff! Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 23:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)